Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Daniel 2:36

This [is] the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.

36 45. The interpretation of the dream. The four parts of the image signify four kingdoms, the first being represented by its present and greatest ruler, Nebuchadnezzar.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king – Daniel here speaks in his own name, and in the name of his companions. Hence, he says, we will tell the interpretation. It was in answer to their united supplications Dan 2:18, that this meaning of the vision had been made known to him; and it would not only have been a violation of the rules of modesty, but an unjust assumption, if Daniel had claimed the whole credit of the revelation to himself. Though he was the only one who addressed the king, yet he seems to have desired that it might be understood that he was not alone in the honor which God had conferred, and that he wished that his companions should be had in just remembrance. Compare Dan 2:49.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

By this word we appears Daniels piety and modesty, for he declares by it that he and his companions had begged this skill from God, and therefore he did not and could not arrogate it to himself, excluding them, without injury and dishonour to God that heard prayer. Now begins the interpretation.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

36. weDaniel and his threefriends.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

This is the dream,…. Which Nebuchadnezzar dreamed, but had forgot, and was now punctually and exactly made known to him; for the truth of which he is appealed unto; for, no doubt, by this account, the whole of his dream, and every circumstance of it, were brought to his mind:

and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king; for though both the dream, and the interpretation of it, were only revealed to Daniel; yet he joins his companions with him, partly because they were now present, and chiefly because they were assisting to him in prayer for it.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE IMAGE–FOUR PARTS

Verses 36-43:

Verse 36 asserts that this is the body or torso of the dream. Then Daniel modestly asserted that he would gladly tell the interpretation or meaning thereof, especially as it related to Nebuchadnezzar, or in language that Nebuchadnezzar could understand what part applied to him.

Verses 37, 38 are a direct address of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar. In it Daniel explained that Nebuchadnezzar was a “king of kings,” to whom the living God had granted a kingdom with: 1) power, and 2) strength, and 3) glory. Wherever men of the human race dwelt, over all the earth; Even the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, God had given into Nebuchadnezzar’s hand. God had made him ruler over them all, Daniel certified. Then He added, “you are this head of gold,” on this monstrous image. You are a cruel steward, king, ruler of all the people who worship images of lifeless gods, see? Psa 115:4-9; 1Co 8:5-6. Nebuchadnezzar’s jurisdiction was the first organized one-world-wide-empire. It was soon to fall.

Verse 39 proceeds to describe or interpret that after Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold kingdom, there should arise another kingdom, a second kingdom of world wide Gentile dominion, inferior to the first of Nebuchadnezzar–this second was that one of silver breast and arms, the Medo-Persian one, v. 32; Dan 7:5; And yet another, a third kingdom of Gentile world wide dominion, of brass, that too was to “rule over all the earth,” the Grecian or Graeco-Macedonian kingdom, v. 32; Dan 7:6. Note each of these, and the fourth, was and is a pseudo-usurped-kingdom, that disregarded the living God, whose Son is to be the true ruler over all God’s earth, Luk 1:32-33; Rev 5:9-10.

Verse 40 asserts that the meaning of the feet part of this great image represents a fourth and final form of a one-world heathen or Gentile government, originating from the tower of Babel, builders who sought to build a name for themselves, a tower that would reach to the heavens; It was to be a source of their own salvation, be a protection for them. They all and each left God (the living God) out of all their plans, Gen 11:1-9. So should this fourth one world representative of that tower of Babel, original Gentile Government building concept, go forth strong as iron, but without embracing the living God.

This fourth kingdom (the Roman Empire) was to be a ruthless one, strong, breaking or destroying, and subduing, breaking, and bruising or destroying people, all things in her path, until the stone, cut out without hands, the virgin born one came to strike the feet (the progress) or ongoing of that mighty empire, to break and scatter the one world Gentile government that it espoused.

Though shattered and scattered that fourth empire is to be revived again for total destruction at the coming of our Lord. It is still dispersed through that stone Jesus Christ. Today His church, called from among the Gentiles, yet sent through the earth, as a witness to all Gentiles, the nations, will one day be an instrument of our Lord in ruling and reigning over all nations, Mat 4:13-22; Joh 15:16; Joh 15:27; Act 10:37; Act 15:13-14; Eph 3:21; Rev 5:9-10; Luk 22:30; 1Co 15:23-28

Verses 41-43 explain that this fourth one world Gentile kingdom was different from the first three parts of the image, designed to symbolize a different lesson, Dan 7:7; Dan 7:23. This lower, last feet-part was formed by a mixture of iron and clay, signifying that when struck by that special stone, the potter’s clay and iron toes and feet should be shattered and scattered, divided but not destroyed or totally put out of existence, at the time of the striking, as the first three kingdoms had been. In this fourth kingdom the iron mixed with miry clay or buttle clay, so the kingdom should be partly strong and partly broken. These elements of clay and iron of the fourth kingdom, the Roman Empire, after broken should “mingle themselves,” as small heathen or Gentile governments, “with the seed of men,” after being broken up as a one world kingdom. But note v. 43 asserts “they shall not cleave” one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. Since shortly after our Lord’s first coming that Roman Empire has been broken, scattered, neither a one world government, while scattered and shattered, nor yet completely subdued. Such awaits our Lord’s second coming, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords or living Lord overall, all people, all nations and all things.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

HOMILETICS

SECT. IX.THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DREAM (Chap. Dan. 2:36-46)

In the interpretation of the kings dream we come to the prophecies of Daniel. Some of these prophecies were communications from God to Daniel alone, without any other medium; others, like the present, through Daniel as the interpreter of what was already given to another in the shape of a dream. This vision, says E. Irving, was revealed, not to the prophet, but to the king, in order to mark its secular and subsidiary nature, but interpreted by the prophet to show that it was, if not immediately, yet indirectly, connected with the Church. The prophecies of Daniel have a character peculiar to themselves, as marked by order and distinctness, and as having in them notes of time at which the events predicted should take place. These prophecies especially, like those of St. John, are, as Mr. Birks observes, continuous, beginning with some chief event near to the date when they were given. They are, therefore, said, like those of the Revelation, to be of the historical kind, as distinguished from the discursive, the character of the other prophetical books in general [49]. They constitute an important portion of that sure word of prophecy, whereto we do well to take heed, as to a light shining in a dark place (2Pe. 1:19). Very specially given, that through patience and comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope (Rom. 15:4). A great part of the prophecies of Daniel have already been accomplished, and that with such remarkable exactness as to have given occasion to objectors to deny the genuineness of the book, as being, in their view, instead of prophecies, mere narrations of events already past. The past and present fulfilment of one large portion of them leaves no room for doubt as to the similar fulfilment of the rest. The prophecy before us we find repeated, with important additions, in a vision given to Daniel himself, and useful in assisting to understand the present one. That vision, given for the sake of the additions, is that of the four beasts, contained in chap. 7. In this and the other prophecies of Daniel, it is not the history of all nations that we find mapped out, but that of those only which have had to do with the people of God; that, namely, of the great universal empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, with the ten Gothic or German nations, into which the last of these came to be divided, comprehending what is called the prophetic earth, or the world as known by the ancients.

[49] The prophecies of Scripture are of two kinds; the one, Prophecy properly so called, or the showing forth of the purposes of God respecting the world and the Church; the other, Prophetic History, or the same purposes digested in a narrative of coming events, drawn up with reference to time and place. The latter kind, of which are the Books of Daniel and the Revelation, are nothing else than histories of the future, expressed for the most part in a natural or emblematic, not an artificial language, that it might be more expressive and universally intelligible. In the Book of Daniel this is done as it were by four main streams, all commencing from the period at which the prophet lived, and running down to the time of the end. In the first of these, are used the emblems of the four metals combined into an image, to denote a fourfold succession of empires, which should arise one out of the other; until at length a fifth, described by a stone cut out without hands, should destroy them all and fill the earth, and endure for evermore. In the second, under the emblem of four beasts, are described the same four empires, not with a view of repeating the former vision, but to connect this new vision with the same points of time, in order to give date and place to the description of a certain blasphemous power, which was to do strange things against the Most High in the time and territory of the last of the four great empires described in the former vision. The third of these four chief streams of prophetic history connecteth itself with the former at the struggle of the third kingdom with the second, in order that it may trace, within the territory of the third, the rise of another blasphemous power, which was also to prevail against the saints of God till the time of the end. Now the fourth (for we purposely omit the prophecy of the seventy weeks) is not symbolical, being the history of men, not of things, and also connects itself with the time of Daniel by the mention of certain kings immediately thereafter; which end of connection having been secured, it makes large leaps in order to reach the description of a third blasphemous and ungodly power, which was to arise in the form of an individual man, not of an institution, close to the time of the end.E. Irving.

PART FIRST: THE IMAGE (Dan. 2:37-43).

Daniel interprets the four parts of the image, distinguished by the different materials of which they were composed, as representing the four great successive monarchies of the world, commencing with that of Babylon, of which Nebuchadnezzar was the head, and thus subsisting in the prophets own time. These monarchies are styled indiscriminately kingdoms and kings, or ruling dynasties [50]. These are readily and almost universally understood to be the empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome [51], all well known to have possessed, in a popular sense, the character of universality, and to have succeeded each other, the last of the four having also, according to the symbol, been divided in its later period into ten kingdoms. The first of these Daniel himself expressly declares to be that of which Nebuchadnezzar was the head (Dan. 2:38). According to Daniels interpretation of the writing on the wall of Belshazzars palace, the empire of Babylon was, at the death of that monarch, given to the Medes and Persians (chap. Dan. 5:26-31). The Persian, or, as it is sometimes called, the Medo-Persian, was thus the second of the four. In the subsequent vision of the ram and the lie-goat contending for the mastery, the latter, which gained the ascendancy, is said by Gabriel to be the kings of Grecia, and the former, which was cast down by the other to the ground, to be the kings of Media and Persia (chap. Dan. 8:3-21). The Greek empire was therefore the third. This, which was founded by Alexander the Great, king of Macedon, and therefore sometimes called the Macedonian empire, was, after being, at the death of its founder, divided among his four principal generals, Antigonus, Lysimachus, Seleucus and Ptolemy, terminated by the Romans, who incorporated the whole into their gigantic empire, which therefore formed the fourth, and which, in its divided form, continues to this day [52]. The different materials composing the image and representing the four successive empires, descending from gold to iron and clay, have been viewed as not inaptly exhibiting humanity in its various stages, from its highest excellence to its lowest decay; and as not obscurely indicating a downward course, entirely opposed to the theory of human progress and perfectibility [53]. We now view the constituent parts of the image.

[50] After thee shall arise another kingdom (Dan. 2:39). The exposition of kings as ruling dynasties in the symbolic prophecies is confirmed alike by reason and Scripture usage.Birks. Gaussen remarks that in the image we may see a change of metal, indicating not properly a new empire, but a new people, a new language, a new dynasty, which rises up to rule over the world, and to hold under its sway the people of God; the time of the image being the times of the Gentiles (Luk. 21:24), that is, the period during which the Gentiles are to rule over Jerusalem and to trample it underfoot, beginning with the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, and continuing under the Persians, until finally the Latins take the place of the Greeks in governing the world and oppressing the people of God.

[51] Calvin says: My assertion is perfectly correct, that interpreters of any judgment and candour all explain the passage of the Babylonian. Persian. Macedonian, and Roman monarchies. The rival interpretation which has prevailed the most is that of which Porphyry is the earliest known advocate, and which has been embraced since by Junius, Hayn, Lightfoot, Grotius, LEmpereur, Venema, and a few other writers down to our own day. Its main feature is to make the successors of Alexander, the fourth empire, distinct from that of Alexander himself, and thus to terminate the vision before the first Advent. This view has now scarcely an advocate. An opposite deviation from the general view has been adopted by a few writers in the last fifteen or twenty years. Their scheme, so far as it has any consistency, is the following. The empire of Persia is only the continuation of the first empire of Babylon; the second, of the Grecian; and the third is the Roman; the fourth is still future.Birks, written in 1845. Dr. Pusey says: It is assumed in Rationalist interpretation that the fourth empire is no empire later than the Macedonian, to which Antiochus Epiphanes belonged. For else there would be prophecy: there is to be no allusion to the Roman empire; for in the time of Antiochus human foresight could not yet discern that it would become an empire of the world. But if the Grecian empire is to be the fourth, which are the other three? Agreed as this school is as to the result, they have been nothing less than agreed as to the process whereby it is to be arrived at. Every possible combination has been tried. All ancient authors speak of the kingdom of Alexander and his successors as one and the same kingdom. Josephus says: Alexander being dead, the empire was divided among his successors. He doth not say, observes Bishop Newton, that so many new empires were erected. Even Grotius himself acknowledged that even now the Hebrews call those kingdoms by one name, the kingdom of the Grecians.

[52] The Roman empire to be the fourth kingdom of Daniel, was believed by the Church of Israel both before and in our Saviours time; received by the disciples of the apostles and the whole Christian Church for the first four hundred years, without any known contradiction. And I confess, having so good ground in Scripture, it is with me tantum non articulus fidei, little less than an article of faith. Ephraim Syrus, in the fourth century, interpreted the fourth kingdom of the Greek, dividing that of the Medo-Persian into two, those of the Medes and of the Persians as the second and third,the only exception to Medes assertion. Jerome, in the beginning of the fifth century, speaks of it as what all ecclesiastical writers had handed down, that the ten kingdoms were to rise out of the division of the Roman empire. Cyril of Jerusalem, a century later, says that this (the fourth kingdom) is that of the Romans has been the tradition of the Churchs interpreters. Irenus, in the second century, speaks of the division of the empire as a thing still future. HippoIytus, at the beginning of the third, says, Who then are these but the Romans? which same is the iron, the kingdom which now standeth. For its legs, saith he, are of iron. After this, then, what remaineth, beloved, save the toes of the feet of the image, wherein part shall be of iron and part of clay, being mixed one with another?Newton.

[53] The world, says Calvin, grows worse as it grows older; for the Persians and Medes, who seized upon the whole East under the auspices of Cyrus, were worse than the Assyrians and Chaldeans. So profane poets invented fables about the four ages, a golden, silver, brazen, and iron one. Dr. Coxe observes that the human figure has been often introduced by historians and poets to represent cities, peoples, the progress or decline of empires, or the relative importance of different parts of a government.

1. The head, or the Babylonian Empire. This empire, from its riches, represented by gold. Babylon itself called the golden city, or, as the margin, the exactress of gold (Isa. 14:4). The cruel oppressor of Gods ancient people (Psa. 137:8). The mother of idolatry (Jer. 51:7). Notorious for its practice of sorcery and divination. Doomed to destruction for its sins (Jer. 51:35; Psa. 137:8). Nebuchadnezzar exhibited in the history as an example of cruelty. Hence Babylon made a type of Rome, drunk with the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus (Rev. 17:5-6). The Babylonian empire, commencing with Nebuchadnezzars sole reign about 6065 B.C., the year also of the commencement of Judahs captivity, terminated with Belshazzars death, about sixty-eight years afterwards (chap. Dan. 5:30-31). The empire said to be universal (Dan. 2:37-38). The words, however, of prophetic Scripture not to be strained to their strictest and literal meaning. In point of fact, the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar never extended to Europe, nor perhaps into Africa beyond the boundaries of Egypt. Virtually, however, it was universal. Raised up by God in His providence for His own purpose. God hath given thee a kingdom (Dan. 2:37) [54]. Hence Nebuchadnezzar spoken of by God as His servant (Jer. 27:6). The purpose designed to be served by Him the chastisement of Israel and other nations, and the glory of Jehovahs own name. The termination of that empire as truly of God as its establishment. God hath remembered thy kingdom and finished it (chap. Dan. 5:26). Babylon destroyed as foretold by Isaiah two centuries before the event (Isa. 45:1-3). Greek historians relate that Cyrus took Babylon by first drawing off the waters of the Euphrates, and then entering the city from the bed of the river through the brazen gates which opened upon it, but which on the night of a great festival had been left unshut [55].

[54] God hath given thee a kingdom (Dan. 2:37). Dr. Rule observes that this great king could not have forgotten that his father was only a satrap at first, a successful rebel, who perfidiously allied himself with his masters enemies, and by that means overthrew Nineveh and set up as king at Babylon. By a suddenly acquired sovereignty over all the servant-kings, he became king of kings; and thus Nebuchadnezzar, as son of Nabopolassar, was the first Babylonian king of kings by inheritance. Gaussen says: Nebuchadnezzar was the successor of the kings of Assyria, the most ancient and the noblest of monarchies. Since Nebuchadnezzars father it had become the empire of Babylon; the Chaldeans formed but one kingdom with the Assyrians. The young King Nebuchadnezzar had met with the most extraordinary successes from the very commencement of his reign; everything had given way to him. He had been led from his victories and his brilliant achievements to regard himself as the creator of his own magnificent fortune, and to look upon himself as a kind of demigod.

[55] Herodotus relates that Cyrus, wearied with the length of the siege, devised the plan of diverting the course of the river; and that when this was done, those who had been assigned to that post entered by the bed of the river, which had ebbed to the height only of the thighs, and came upon the Babylonians unexpectedly while celebrating a feast with dancing and revelry; those living in the middle of the city not knowing when it was taken on account of its great extent.

2. The breast and arms, or the Medo-Persian Empire. In the night in which Belshazzar was slain, Darius, the Mede, took the kingdom (chap. Dan. 5:30-31). The capture of Babylon, however, rather the work of the Persians. Media at first the stronger power, but under Cyrus, who took the city, became the inferior part of the combined monarchy. Both Medes and Persians, however, as indicated by the two horns of the ram in another vision, shared in the sovereign power till united under Cyrus, who was related to both, and from whom the empire has been generally called the Persian [56]. Represented by silver, as inferior to the first empire [57]. The conquests of Cyrus neither so extensive nor so numerous as those of Nebuchadnezzar. The grandeur of the latter and of his great metropolis never equalled by that of the Persian kings and their new capital, Susa or Shushan. The Persian monarchy more extensive in size, as indicated by the symbol, but inferior in imperial majesty. The two arms of the image symbolical of the two powers that first constituted the empire [58]. The monarchy, from its first establishment by Cyrus to the death of the last king, Darius Codomannus, lasted little more than two hundred years [59]. The two years assigned to Darius the Mede, generally supposed to be the same with Cyaxares, completed the seventy years of Israels captivity in Babylon. It was under this second empire, on the accession of Cyrus, who succeeded his uncle Darius, that the Jews obtained permission to return to their own land, Juda, however, still remaining tributary to the empire. Under the same empire lived Ezra and Nehemiah, Mordecai and Esther, as well as the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi; while under it Daniel himself spent the last years of his life. It was under the reign of Artaxerxes I., surnamed Longimanus, in the year B.C. 458, that the commission was given to Ezra to repair to Jerusalem and restore the Temple-worship, about eighty years after the edict of Cyrus.

[56] Cyrus was the son of Cambyses, the brother of Darius, who was the son of Astyages and the uncle of Cyrus, and believed to be the second Cyaxares of the Greek historians. Cyrus at first fought under his uncle; and on the taking of Babylon he desired him to take the kingdom. On the death of his father and of his uncle, in the year 536 b.c., he became sovereign of the Medes and Persians.
[57] Inferior to thee. Castalio renders the words, worse than those. The inferiority might have a probable reference also to the character of the monarchs, the Persian kings being, according to Prideaux, the worst race of men that ever governed an empire. Calvin says, Cyrus was, it is true, a prudent prince, but yet sanguinary. Ambition and avarice carried him fiercely forwards, and he wandered in every direction like a wild beast, forgetful of all humanity.

[58] Josephus says that the two hands and shoulders of the image signify that the empire of the Babylonians should be dissolved by two kings.
[59] According to the Canon of Ptolemy, the successors of Darius the Mede were: Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius (Hystaspis), Xerxes, Artaxerxes, Darius II., Artaxerxes II., Ochus, Arostes, Darius III.

3. The belly and thighs, or the Grecian Empire. The Persians were, after many encounters, ultimately subdued by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, king of Macedon, who thus established the Grecian, or, as it is from him sometimes called, the Macedonian empire. The symbolical metal of this, the third great monarchy, was brass, corresponding to the Homeric title, the brazen-mailed Greeks [60]. Brass also a frequent symbol of eloquence, for which the Greeks were distinguished. This third empire said, according to Scripture usage, to bear rule over all the earth. In the vision of the four beasts it is represented by a leopard with four wings and four heads, while dominion is said to be given to it. Alexander, after his extensive conquests, commanded that he should be called king of all the world, and is said to have wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. After colonising Asia with Grecian cities [61], he died in Babylon at the age of thirty-two, in consequence of a debauch [62]. The Greek or Macedonian empire was continued under his successors, who, however, were not the members of his own family, but his favourite generals. These, as already remarked, were four, being represented in the corresponding vision by the four heads of the leopard, and in another by the four notable horns of the he-goat (chap. Dan. 7:6; Dan. 8:8). In the fourfold division of the empire after the battle of Ipsus, the two principal portions, those of Syria and Egypt, fell to Seleucus and Ptolemy Lagus, hence called respectively the Seleucid and the Lagid, and probably represented by the two thighs of the image, it being with these alone that the Jewish Church and nation had to do [63]. The third empire was the period of the Jews greatest suffering, and at the same time their greatest national renown. It included the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the kings of Syria, and the heroic struggles of the Maccabees.

[60] Another third kingdom of brass. Josephus explains the symbol by saying that another, coming from the west, completely covered with brass, should destroy the empire of the Medes and Persians.

[61] Which shall bear rule over all the earth. Plutarch says that Alexander founded above seventy cities among the barbarous people, and sowed Asia with Greek troops. Dr. Pusey remarks that, apart from garrisons, towards seventy cities founded by him or by his generals at his command, have been traced in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Media, Hyrcania, Parthia, Bactria, Sogdiana, India on the Hydaspes, the Acesines, and the Indus, and in other countries; in modern terms, in the whole of Turkey in Asia, Egypt, all habitable Persia, north, east, and south beyond it, in Beloochistan, the Deccan, Cabool, Afghanistan, the Punjab; and yet northward in Khorassan and Khondooz, to Bokhara and Turkestan. In all this Alexander was imitated by his generals who succeeded him.

[62] Death, says Gaussen, in a moment silences that commanding voice which made the earth to tremble; and he for whom, the evening before, the world seemed too small, is enclosed in a tomb of porphyry, lately found in Egypt, and now in the British Museum.
[63] Five years after Alexanders death, his wife, his brothers, his sisters, and his children, had all perished; and his generals, plunged in blood, were now disputing for his vast empire. At length, after thirty years of war, they divided it toward the four winds of heaven, into four kingdoms, two of which (the only ones that had to do with the people of God) soon became more powerful than the others. These were, north of Jerusalem, the Grecian kingdom of the Seleucid in Syria; and south of Jerusalem, the Grecian kingdom of the Ptolemies in Egypt. Seleucus and Ptolemy were two of Alexanders generals; and their descendants, who in Daniel are called the kings of the North and the kings of the South, reigned until the arrival of the Romans, and ruled in turn over the people of God.Gaussen.

4. The legs and feet, or the Roman Empire. The Greeks in their turn were subdued by the Romans, who established the fourth and last of the worlds universal monarchies [64]. The legs were of iron, while, in the feet, the iron was mingled with clay. The fourth empire represented as stronger than any of its predecessors, and as breaking them in pieces, as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things (Dan. 2:40). In the corresponding vision, it is represented by a beast without a name, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, having great iron teeth, devouring and breaking in pieces, and stamping the residue with its feet (chap. Dan. 7:7). The Romans subdued and broke in pieces the empire of Alexander and his successors, as it did the whole known world. They made Syria a Roman province in the year 65 B.C., as they did Egypt thirty years later. The arms of the republic, says the infidel historian of the Roman empire, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the ocean; and the images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome. The Roman empire fitly represented by iron as well from its immense strength as from the sternness, hardness, and valour of its people, and the vigour, perseverance, and oppressive consequences of its military achievements. It was an iron crown which was worn by its emperor, and an iron yoke to which it subjected the nations. The Romans pre-eminently men of the sword. With the god of war for their legendary parent, their national fierceness was represented by the she-wolf that nourished their founder. The iron feet, however, mixed with clay, aptly indicated that, in the later period of its existence, the empire should degenerate and be weakened by an admixture of foreign nations. The kingdom was to be divided,partly strong and partly broken or brittle. The people were to mingle themselves with the seed of men, or with inferior races; but not so as to cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay (Dan. 2:40-43). It is well known that the Roman empire, in its later period, was weakened by the irruptions of barbarous nations from the North, who gradually became mingled with the native inhabitants [65]. Their mingling themselves with the seed of men without cleaving to each other, is believed to point to the marriage alliances formed by the Romans with the barbarians, which were yet followed by no cordial union [66]; reasons of state, as Bishop Newton observes, being stronger than the ties of blood, and interest generally availing more than affinity. This fourth empire had the farther marked peculiarity that in its later period of weakness and decay, and in connection with this very admixture of foreign elements represented by the clay, it was to be divided into ten separate kingdoms, indicated by the ten toes of the image. The same remarkable circumstance symbolised, in Daniels corresponding vision, by the ten horns of the fourth beast, expressly said to be ten kings or kingdoms (Dan. 7:24). And it is a singular confirmation of the correctness of the application, that the number of inferior kingdoms formed out of the weakened and dismembered Roman empire, in consequence of the irruptions from the North, has been generally regarded as, with more or less exactness, ten [67]. The number of these Gothic or German kingdoms appears to have been exactly ten at the earliest period of their formation, but to have afterwards varied, in consequence of the frequent though temporary alliances predicted in the prophecy; the number, however, never departing far from the original ten. The tenfold character of the kingdoms, it has been observed, dominant through the whole period of their existence, probably to appear at the beginning and close of their history, though not always strictly maintained throughout [68]. The two legs of the image may be regarded as foreshadowing the division of the empire into that of the East and West, previous to the formation of the ten kingdoms. To the fourth or Roman empire also were the Jews made subject. It was soon after the battle of Pydna that they first came in contact with that power which, in the providence of God, was to be the instrument of a sorer chastisement and a longer captivity than that by Nebuchadnezzar. Their subjugation itself the consequence of trust in an arm of flesh. Leaning on Rome as they had done on Egypt, they were pierced by the broken reed. The league with Rome, sued for and obtained by Judas and Jason, the Maccabean leaders, against their Grecian masters, proved the step to their subjection to the new world-power. It was after Judaea had become a province of the Roman empire that the Redeemer of the world was born. The predicted manner of His vicarious death and crucifixion the consequence of that subjugation, exhibiting, as it did, Christ made a curse for us (Mat. 27:26; Gal. 3:13). It was the representative of this empire in Judaea that wrote the title over the cross, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS (Mat. 27:37). That same King of the Jews to be the Founder of a divine monarchy that shall fill the whole earth.

[64] His legs of iron (Dan. 2:33). The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron (Dan. 2:40). Josephus says that the two legs might denote the two Roman consuls. After the battle of Pydna, the Roman conqueror divided Macedon into four parts, and soon after reduced it into the form of a province; and not long after the fall of Macedon, Carthage was finally destroyed.Birks. Gaussen observes that we may date the destruction of the thighs of brass and the commencement of the legs of iron from the year 65 b.c., when Pompey overthrew the kingdom of Syria, and so broke the first thigh; or from the year 30 b.c., when Augustus Csar destroyed the second thigh, the Grecian kingdom of Ptolemy in Egypt, and became the first emperor of Rome, with his authority fully established in Jerusalem.

[65] His feet part of iron and part of clay (Dan. 2:33). The kingdom shall be divided, partly strong and partly broken (marg. brittle) (Dan. 2:41-42). Jerome, who lived to see the incursions of the Northern barbarians, says in his Commentary: The fourth kingdom, which plainly belongs to the Romans, is the iron which breaketh and subdueth all things; but his feet and toes are part of iron and part of clay, which is most manifestly proved at this time. For as in the beginning nothing was stronger and harder than the Roman empire, so in the end of things nothing is weaker; since both in civil wars and against divers nations we need the assistance of other barbarous nations. From the reign of Valens, says Gibbon, may justly be dated the disastrous period of the fall of the Roman empire. Especially from that time began the infusion of the foreign element, tending to weaken the strength and cohesion of the empire; the mixture being partly in barbarian levies, foreign mercenaries, and conquests made by the Northern invaders. In 412, the Visigoths had Aquitaine given them by the Emperor to retire to. The Burgundians had a region on the Rhine, which they had invaded, granted them for an inheritance. Pharamond, the prince of the Salian Franks in Germany, had seats granted to his people in the empire near the same river. And now, says Sir Isaac Newton, the barbarians were all quieted and settled in several kingdoms within the empire, not only by conquest, but by the grants of the Emperor Honorius.Quoted by Birks. About four hundred years after Christ, says M. Gaussen, almost at the same moment, ten Gothic nations, speaking the same language (a kind of German), warlike and cruel, and countless as the sand, were seen pouring from the remote regions of the North towards the frontiers of the fourth kingdom: they crossed the Danube and the Rhine, seized upon the Roman empire, and established themselves in its capital, a.d. 476. But soon they too adopted the customs, the religion, the worship, the very language of the Romans; so that they continued the fourth empire under another form. Their Church was called the Latin Church, their religion the Romish religion, their empire the Latin empire, their sacred language the Latin language, and their history for ages the history of the Latin Church and empire.

[66] Shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave one to another (Dan. 2:43). Dr. Keith observes: The sovereigns of the different kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided after being broken down have been perpetually contracting matrimonial alliances with each other; but notwithstanding this seeming bond of union, they have not united or adhered together. Mr. Birks, in his book on the First Two Visions of Daniel, adduces a great number of instances in which this was the case. M. Gaussen, however, regards the mixture of the iron and the clay as rather pointing to the union between the Church and the State, occasioned by the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire, as well as that of the ten Gothic kingdoms. He remarks that at the time of the conversion of Constantine to Christianity, a great change was introduced into the government and internal constitution of the empire. Constantine exempted the ministers of the Christian religion from the payment of taxes, loaded them with riches and honours, and gave them palaces in the principal cities of his states. He established among them an ecclesiastical government, recognised in the empire and sanctioned by the laws, with its superior and inferior heads. After Constantine, almost all the emperors continued or added to his work. The clergy became a power that soon equalled that of the prince. The pastors of the cities governed those of the country. The priests of the large towns aspired to rule over those of the smaller ones. After some time they even aimed at being independent of the princes who had recognised them; and subsequently pushing their haughty pretensions still further, they set themselves above kings, and claimed the right of creating or deposing them at pleasure. The Bishop of Rome proclaimed himself the bishop of bishops, took the title of Pontifex Maximus, a title completely pagan, and which the Roman emperors had hitherto borne for the celebration of idolatrous rites. The mixture was to be an internal, not an external division like that of the toes, but taking place in the very essence of the constitution, and existing both in the feet and in the toes, exactly as we see in all the states of the Western empireItaly, Austria, France, Spain, &c.; this change taking place eighty years after the arrival of the Gothic nations. Dr. Rule also suggests whether the weakening mixture spoken of as the seed of men, or, according to the Vulgate and Jerome, the seed of man, was not the uniting of a degenerate Christianity, a Christianity in name rather than in substance,a system human in origin, in spirit, and in administration,with all the governments of Europe until three or four centuries ago, and still with some of them, though continually in conflict with one or another. According to Keil, the figure is derived from the sowing of a field with mixed seed, and denotes all the means employed by the rulers to combine the different nationalities, among which marriage is only spoken of as the most important. Dr. Cox remarks that the Roman and Northern nations were so dissimilar in their habits and character that they never could form one uniform people. Hoffmann, quoted by Pusey, says in reference to the marriage alliances: This was characteristic from the relation of the immigrating nations to Rome; they did not found a new kingdom, but continued the Roman. And so it continues until the end of all earthly power, until its final ramification into ten kingdoms.

[67] The toes and the feet were part of iron and part of clay. Machiavelli, a Roman historian, specifies by name the ten Gothic kingdoms into which, like the ten toes of the feet, the Roman empire was divided: the Herulo-Thuringi, the Ostrogoths, the Lombards, the Franks, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Sueves and Alans, the Vandals, the Huns, and the Saxons. Jerome, speaking of his own day, in the beginning of the fifth century, says: Innumerable and most savage nations have taken possession of the whole of Gaul. The Quadians, the Vandals, the Sarmatians, the Alani, the Gepid, the Heruli, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, and the Pannonians, have ravaged the whole country between the Alps and the Pyrenees, the ocean, and the Rhine; thus, as Archdeacon Harrison remarks, enumerating exactly ten nations. The most usual list, however, observes Mr. Birks in 1845, of living commentators, is that which omits the Huns and introduces the Alans as a distinct power. Gaussen omits both Huns and Saxons; the former, as not settling in the Roman empire, though they devastated it under Alaric, and were neither of the same language nor of the same race as the other kingdoms; the latter, because England did not form a part of the prophetic earth; neither that country, nor Holland, nor Lower Germany having made a part of the Roman State at the accession of Augustus Csar. Keil, Dr. Todd, and some others, think that the ten kingdoms belong to the future. On the other hand, Professor Lee thinks that the feet must necessarily symbolise heathen Rome in its last times, and that the kings represented by the toes may be supposed, in a mystical sense, as the digit ten, a round number, and signifying a whole series.

[68] Asia had been for ages the seat of power, the mightiest and most populous region of the globe. Europe was buried in darkness, and its western tribes were like outcasts from the family of nations. Greece itself had scarce risen into notice, and presented only a confused multitude of feeble and jarring tribes. That an empire was thus born among the barbarians of Latium which would extend its power over Juda, Syria, and Babylon itself, was an event which no human wisdom could possibly divine. That this empire, like iron, should be endued with a political firmness beyond the mightiest monarchies of the East, was a prediction no less surprising, and would nowhere seem less credible than amidst the proud courtiers of Babylon. Two centuries later, in his various accounts of every region of the earth and of innumerable towns and rivers, Herodotus never once mentions the Tiber or the city of Rome. Yet here, amidst the splendour of Babylon, the prophet announces the rise and dominion of this fourth and greater empire.Birks. Speaking of the same unlikelihood in regard to Rome, Dr. Pusey remarks that we have two Jewish documents, the one probably a little after the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, the other not later than the death of John Hyrcanus, b.c. 105, which show two very different aspects of the Jewish mind towards the Roman commonwealth, the one in Alexandria, the other in Palestine; yet in neither is there the slightest apprehension of Roman greatness. The third Sibylline book is now generally held to be the work of a Jew in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. It threatens unhesitatingly that all the evils which had been done by the Romans to Asia should be requited with usury upon them. The first Book of Maccabees, on the other hand, relates the simple unsuspecting trust which Judas Maccabus had in the Romans, as if they were wholly unambitious, and conquering only when assailed. The secret springs of Roman greatness, observes Mr. Birks, had all been marked and defined in Gods everlasting counsels. While the empires of the East were sinking into unsuspected decay, this mighty power was nursing into strength amidst the gloomy shades of the West, which was soon to eclipse their greatness by a wider extent of dominion and a more enduring sway. The foundations of the republic were laid in weakness, while Darius and Xerxes marshalled all Asia under their haughty banners, and precipitated their countless hosts on the States of Greece. While Miltiades, Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles broke the strength of Persia, and with a band of poets and sages carried the glory of Athens to its height, Rome was convulsed with the factions of the senate and people, gasping under the tyranny of the Decemvirs, struggling for existence with the qui, Volsci, and Veientians, and scarcely heard of beyond their narrow sphere of barbarian hostility.

From this part of the interpretation of the dream we may notice

1. The foreknowledge and omniscience of God. Here is a prophetic outline of the history of the civilised world for upwards of a thousand years; the four great world-monarchies, commencing with Nebuchadnezzar who had recently ascended the throne; their respective characters; the decay of the fourth from foreign mixture, with its division into ten separate kingdoms. History shows the prophecy to have been fulfilled as truly since the death of Antiochus Epiphanes as before it. Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world. It is natural that He who created the world should have had a plan, not only for its creation but its future history. All history but the fulfilment of that plan. Why should He not be able to communicate to His servants portions of that plan for His own glory and the comfort and guidance of His people? The great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter (Dan. 2:45). These future events, with all their connections, however unlikely to human foresight to occur [69], all open from the beginning to His omniscient eye, as simply His works of providence.

[69] M. Gaussen calls attention to the fact that Sir Isaac Newton, while pursuing the study of the prophecies, saw, in counting back the years with the greatest exactness, that the epochs fixed by Daniel for the several events, proved perfectly correct. He saw also that the heathen astronomer Ptolemy, who lived 140 years after Christ, had, in order to mark the years of his eclipses, divided the ages of antiquity exactly in the same manner as the prophet had done 745 years before him; seeing the four great monarchies in the past, as Daniel had seen them in the distant future. He saw also that Ptolemy considered these four monarchies as a succession of reigns, as Daniel views them under the figure of a single statue, and as forming, in a manner, only one kingdom. So that the Babylonian was the commencement of the Roman, while the Roman was merely Babylon in its development and its plenitude. The same author observes that Le Sage or Las Casas, the friend and companion of Napoleon Buonaparte at St. Helena, drew out a chart of the history of the world, in which, unconsciously, he exactly followed Danieldividing the history into four parts, and employing four colours to designate the empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome; dividing, further, the Greek or Macedonian empire into four kingdoms, noticing two of these as much more powerful than the others, viz., the Syrian and the Egyptian; and lastly, dividing the Roman empire in reference to the Northern invasions, as is usually done, including both Huns and Anglo-Saxons.

2. The overruling providence of God. History the execution by divine power of a plan which divine wisdom devised. Such execution is providence. Daniel, in his thanksgiving, extolled Jehovah as the God of wisdom and might, who changeth the times, and who removeth kings and setteth up kings. He accordingly reminds Nebuchadnezzar that it was He who gave the nations into his hand. He did the same thing with his successors. Plutarch wrote a book about the Fortune of Alexander; but that fortune was only the providence of God regarding that monarch, employing him as His free and responsible instrument, as He had done Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar before him. The Lord of hosts mustereth the hosts of the battle, and giveth the victory to whomsoever He will. The providence of God, rather than the boatman, that which carried Csar and all his fortunes. That same providence carries the humblest believer and all that concerns him.

3. The evidence of the truth of revelation. Prophecy no mere guess or clever calculation, whether sage or scientific. As a simple declaration of future events, impenetrable to human foresight, it necessarily partakes of the nature of miracle. Its fulfilment, therefore, the credential of a divine message. Supernatural predictions must either be from above or from beneath. With holiness as their character and their object, they cannot be the latter. Necessarily therefore from above, and as such the testimonial of a messenger sent from God. Appealed to as such by Jesus Himself. These things have I spoken unto you before they come to pass, that when they are come to pass ye may believe that I am He. The character of the Book of Daniel as inspired Scripture, only attempted to be set aside by the assertion that its prophecies were merely narratives of the past. But these prophecies extended not only up to the times of the Maccabees, but far beyond them, and are receiving their fulfilment at the present day. The simple prediction of four, and only four, universal monarchies, is such, and in itself the evidence of a divinely inspired author.

4. The transient nature of human greatness and glory. These reached their height in the empires of Babylon and Persia, Greece and Rome. Yet the three first and much of the fourth have passed away, leaving only vestiges behind, sufficient to testify their existence. The earth-mounds of Babylon, the petty town of Athens with its fragment-strewn Acropolis, and the wretched remains of the palace of the Csars, all echo the cry of the prophet in our ears, All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass (Isa. 40:6-7). The contrast that follows is striking: but the Word of our God shall stand for ever. History and science, observation and experience, constantly verify the declaration. Happy those who, relying on the truths and promises of that Word, secure to themselves, in the possession of that Saviour whom it reveals, a greatness and a glory that shall not pass away.

HOMILETICS

SECT. X.THE INTERPRETATION OF THE DREAMContinued

PART SECOND: THE STONE (Dan. 2:44-45)

The stone no less remarkable than the image. The most glorious part of the vision, and to Christians the most interesting. May be considered under three heads: the Stone itself, its Action on the Image, and its Growth and ultimate Greatness.

I. The Stone itself. While totally unlike all the parts of the image betokening empire, the stone itself was to become a kingdom, or rather the kingdom that was to take the place of all the rest. To be viewed as symbolising both Christ and His kingdom [70]. The two in a sense identified. Nebuchadnezzar thus viewed as one with his empire: Thou art this head of gold. The kingdom is Christ reigning by His power and grace. Yet Christ and the kingdom to be viewed separately. The kingdom said to be something given to Him (chap. Dan. 7:14).

[70] A stone cut out without hands, The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom (Dan. 2:34; Dan. 2:44). The Fathers generally apply the prophecy to Christ Himself, who was miraculously born of a virgin without the concurrence of human means. But it should rather be understood of the kingdom of Christ, which was formed out of the Roman empire; not by number of hands or strength of armies, but without means and the virtue of second causes: first set up while the Roman empire was in its full strength, with legs of iron.Bishop Newton. Mr. Birks regards the stone as being also the Church. Our Lord Himself, by His miraculous conception and His resurrection from the grave, was cut out without hands, with a direct and wonderful triumph of divine power. His people, in like manner, are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, that liveth and abideth for ever. In the day of the resurrection their separation will be complete; and being then united to their Lord, they will form one mystical body, and will along with Him execute the predicted judgments. Dr. A. Clarke remarks: This stone refers chiefly to the Church, which is represented as a foundation-stone; and adds: As the stone represents Christ and His governing influence, it is here said to be a kingdom, i.e., a state of prevailing rule and government. Mede distinguishes between the kingdom of the stone and the kingdom of the mountain; the first, when it was cut out without hands; the second, when it became itself a mountain. The Jews acknowledge the stone to be the Messiah. The ninth king is King Messiah, who reigns from the one end of the world to the other; as it is said, And the stone became a great mountain.Pirke R. Eliezer. Willet regards the prophecy as referring, in the first instance, to Christs first advent, but, by way of analogy, to His second coming, when He shall make a perfect conquest of all earthly kingdoms and powers. Calvin applies the prophecy both to Christ and His kingdom arriving at the close of the fourth monarchy; the stone indicating the humble and abject beginning of Christ, yet divinely sent, and His kingdom separated from all earthly ones, being divine and heavenly. Gaussen understands it of some feeble and insignificant portion of the Christian Church, which shall become the occasion of the overthrow of the image, and of the enemy of the Redeemers kingdom, without the will of men being directly employed in it, or having any ground of glorying therein, all being obliged to acknowledge in it the finger of God and the power of His grace alone.

1. Christ Himself. The stone of Israel one of the Old Testament names of the Messiah. The stone laid for a foundation for sinners to build their hopes upon (Isa. 28:16). The corner-stone of the spiritual temple (Psa. 118:22; Eph. 2:20; 1Pe. 2:4; 1Pe. 2:7). A crushing stone of stumbling to those who reject Him, but a sure and precious foundation to all who accept and trust in Him (Mat. 21:42; Mat. 21:44). Like the stone cut out of the mountains without hands (Dan. 2:45), Christs birth supernatural. Born of a virgin and conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost. Humble in circumstances and mean in outward appearance. A root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness (Isa. 53:2). His resurrection, or official birth as the Messiah, equally of God (Psa. 2:7; Act. 13:33). As a stone, he, as Gods appointed King of Zion, breaks opposing nations as a potters vessel (Psa. 2:9). In the corresponding vision of the Four Beasts, he who takes the kingdom is one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven (chap. Dan. 7:13). Applied by Jesus to Himself at the judgment seat of Caiaphas (Mat. 26:64). Christ, however, to be viewed as including His people. Christ and believers one (Joh. 15:5; Eph. 5:30). The head and the members one Christ (1Co. 12:12; Rev. 11:15). Like the head, the members made such by a supernatural and divine birth (Joh. 1:12-13). Believers associated with Christ in His government and judgment of the world (1Co. 6:2; Rev. 5:10; Rev. 20:6; Rev. 22:5; Rev. 19:14; Revelation 15). Employed as His instruments both of mercy and judgment (2Co. 10:4-5; Psa. 149:6-9; Jer. 51:20-24).

2. The kingdom of Christ. Under this aspect the stone ultimately expanded into a great mountain, filling the whole earth (Dan. 2:35). This kingdom identified with the visible Church of the New Testament. Called the kingdom of heaven, from its origin and character; the kingdom of God, from its Author and end; and the kingdom of Christ, from its Ruler and King. Announced by John the Baptist and by Christ Himself as then nigh at hand (Mat. 3:2; Mat. 4:17) [71]. The subject of much of Christs teaching both before and after His resurrection (Mat. 4:23; Act. 1:3). Preached by the apostles as in a sense already come (Act. 28:31; 1Co. 4:21; Rev. 1:9). The kingdom, however, then as still, hidden or in mystery (Col. 3:3-4; 1Jn. 3:2; 1Pe. 1:13; Rom. 8:18-25). The kingdom connected with the patience or patient waiting for of Christ (Rev. 1:9; 2Th. 3:5). Now the kingdom of grace, hereafter the kingdom of glory; now the kingdom of the cross, hereafter the kingdom of the crown. The kingdom of Christ, in its manifestation, connected with His second appearing (2Ti. 4:1). A kingdom, though heavenly in its nature, yet, like the preceding ones, to be set up on earth, and to be everlasting, having no successor (Dan. 2:44). Was to be set up in the days of those kings or kingdoms, namely, in the fourth or last of them (Dan. 2:44). Jesus born under Augustus, the first Roman emperor; and the foundation of the kingdom laid on the day of Pentecost under Tiberius, his successor.

[71] The kingdom of God is a phrase which is constantly employed in Scripture to denote that state of things which is placed under the avowed administration of the Messiah, and which consequently could not precede His personal appearance. But during His residence on earth, until His resurrection, this kingdom is uniformly represented as future, though near at hand.Robert Hall.

II. The Action of the Stone upon the Image. It smote the image upon his feet, and brake them in pieces (Dan. 2:34). It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms (Dan. 2:44). Upon his feet; therefore in the time of the fourth or Roman empire, and in the latter part of that empire, when it had already degenerated, and the iron had already or was soon to become mixed with clay, though prior to its tenfold division. It was in the reign of the first empire, when Rome, having reached its highest pitch of glory, began to enter on its gradual decline, that Jesus was born, the stone cut out of the mountain; and it was in that of His immediate successors that the smiting commenced [72]. Morally and secretly, that smiting might be said to commence when the idolatry and polytheism of the Roman empire was undermined by the preaching of Christs gospel and the new religion which it introduced into the world [73]. In the days of Nero, the fifth Roman emperor, the Apostle of the Gentiles could write, Thanks be unto God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ (2Co. 2:14; 2Co. 10:4-5). The Roman empire may be said to have been shaken by the gospel in the first three centuries, and the great image smitten by it to its future destruction. These that have turned the world upside down. That destruction, however, was still distant. The judicial smiting of the stone was not to take place till long after. This gospel of the kingdom must first be preached among all nations for a witness, and then shall the end come. This judicial destruction prominent in the vision. In the corresponding vision of the prophet himself, after judgment is given upon the little horn of the fourth beast, that beast is slain, and its body destroyed and given to the burning flame (chap. Dan. 7:11). The judicial smiting probably in various stages, according to the three forms which that fourth beast or Roman empire should assume as Pagan, Papal, and Infidel [74]; the final stage being symbolically exhibited in the Apocalypse by the great battle of Armageddon, in connection with the pouring out of the seventh and last vial of the wrath of God (Rev. 16:13-16; Rev. 19:11-21) [75].

[72] In the days of these kings. Augustus, the first Roman emperor, in whose reign Jesus Christ was born, had completed the thirty-fourth year of his age when he returned to Rome after the overthrow of Antony. From that period to the end of a lengthened life he remained in the possession of the greatest power, and at the head of the most extensive territory that had yet fallen to the lot of man. Its now incipient weakness and decay may be marked in the following farther quotations from Roman history:The military operations in which Augustus himself took part were not important. The Arabian campaign was disastrous. The war of the Danube and the Rhine, from a struggle in defence of the frontier, became an aggressive movement against the tribes beyond those rivers, but no permanent impression was made upon them. While Tiberius effected the reduction of Pannonia, the district between the Danube and the great tributaries the Drave and the Save, establishing a line of forts along the river to guard against the future incursions of the Northmen, Drusus conducted an extensive plan of aggression against the Germanic nations in general. He led his troops to the Weser; but the difficulties of the country, want of provisions, and more than all, the firm opposition of the natives, compelled him to return to the Rhine, leaving two forts with garrisons on the east bank as a show of conquest. Tiberius took the command on the Rhine upon the death of his brother (Drusus), and constituted the country from thence to the Weser a Roman province, in a.d. 5; but was eventually succeeded by Publius Quintilius Varus, who lost all the advantages gained, in the autumn of a.d. 9. The army, consisting of above 24,000 men, after an attack of three days, was cut to pieces. The general fell upon his sword, and all the forts and posts on the right bank of the Rhine were taken. Rome was filled with consternation at the news of this defeat. Augustus, then an old man, was cowed by the stroke, and for a time could only exclaim, Varus, Varus, give me back my legions. Tiberius was forwarded with reinforcements, but did not deem it advisable to re-occupy the country beyond the Rhine, which reverted to the Germans. Tiberius, the successor of Augustus, was favourably known for military capacity; but the dark features of his character were gradually developed by the possession of power, which allowed him to riot in sensual indulgences without restraint or disguise. Two formidable insurrections of the troops greeted his accession. Three legions, stationed on the frontier towards the Danube, revolted. The insubordination of the grand Roman army stationed on the Rhine presented more serious difficulties. The soldiers demanded to have their time of military service shortened. The reign of Tiberius, extending over an interval of twenty-three years, is barren of political events of importance in a general history, excepting the brief career of Germanicus beyond the Rhine. But just when Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe was on the verge of subjection, Germanicus was recalled by the Emperor, who was jealous of his fame, and the country reverted to the native tribes. The reign of Caligula, who succeeded Tiberius, and whom despotic power so bereft of his senses that he raised his horse to the consulship, and built him a marble stable and an ivory manger, may be passed without notice. Claudius, his successor, now upwards of fifty years of age, was naturally an imbecile. His society had been chiefly that of women and slaves. Female influence of the worst possible description predominated through his reign. One of the few extensions of territory under the emperors was made in the reign of Claudius, a departure from the policy exemplified by Augustus and bequeathed as a legacy to his successors,that of restricting the empire to the limits provided by Nature. South Britain was now constituted a Roman province, but the Silures (in Wales) kept the field with unbroken spirit. It was during the reign of Claudius, who died in a.d. 54, that Christianity was extensively planted in Lesser Asia and in Greece by the labours of Paul, as related in the Acts of the Apostles; eventually abolishing the polytheism of the civilised world, and thus tending to break the great image in pieces.

[73] Smote the image upon his feet. The smiting, says Mr. Birks, is referred by some early writers to the triumphs of the gospel after the first Advent. But Theodoret and others, with more justice, have referred it to His second coming. They saw that the stone was to smite the image on the toes of iron and clay, and that the event must therefore follow the division of the Roman empire. This opinion has, from the same reason, been received by the best expositors in modern times. But the stone is not said to smite the image on its toes, but on its feet, and therefore, it may be supposed, before the division of the empire. Dr. Coxe remarks: That the prediction of the stone does not refer exclusively to the uttermost periods of the world, appears evident from the distinctiveness of the intimation that it will strike the image upon its feet, not upon the toes: the latter are mentioned after the former, as, according to the general construction of the statue, subsequent in time. Consequently the empire of Rome was to be smitten when in its strength, or before the division into several kingdoms. This interpretation is verified by the fact that Christ was born in the reign of Augustus, and the apostolic labours extended to the period of the commencing decline of Roman power. The fallen empire of Rome was forcibly struck when the Apostles fulfilled their Lords commission in going forth to preach the gospel to every creature, and fell to pieces when Constantine, in a.d. 331, issued an edict commanding the destruction of all heathen temples. We may hear, says Gibbon, without suspicion or scandal, that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. Christianity, he says again, erected the triumphant banner of the cross on the ruins of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to the period or the limits of the Roman empire. After a revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished portion of human kind in arts and learning, as well as in arms. By the industry and zeal of the Europeans it has been widely diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa; and by means of their colonies has been firmly established from Canada to Chili, in a world unknown to the ancients. Keil observes: The stone which breaks the image becomes, from the first time after it has struck the image, a great mountain which fills the whole earth(Dan. 2:35); and the kingdom of God is erected by the God of heaven, according to Dan. 2:44, not for the first time after the destruction of all the world-kingdoms, but in the days of the fourth world-monarchy, and thus during its continuance. Daniel indicates its beginning in a simple form, although he does not at large represent its gradual development in the war against the world-power. The last judgment forms only the final completion of the judgment commencing at the first coming of Christ to the earth, which continues from that time onward through the centuries of the spread of the kingdom of heaven upon earth in the form of the Christian Church, till the visible return of Christ in His glory in the clouds of heaven to the final judgment of the living and the dead. Auberlen, however, thinks that the chief point which it is necessary to recognise distinctly and express simply is, that the commencement of the kingdom, spoken of in the second and seventh chapters of Daniel, is nothing else but the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. With this he connects the re-establishment of the kingdom of Israel. Calvin says the sense here is proper and literal. According to Grotius, Christ was to put an end to all earthly empires. Bishop Chandler says: The kingdom of this stone shall bruise the Jews that stumbled at Christs first coming; but the kingdom of the mountain, when manifested, shall bruise the feet of the monarchical statue to dust, and leave no remains of the fourth monarchy in its last and degenerate state.

[74] Broken to pieces together (Dan. 2:35; Dan. 2:44). In this destruction of the image, says M. Gaussen, there shall be nothing but dust, nothing but the most frightful anarchy. This complete and universal breaking up of all existing governments shall begin in the toes and extend to the rest of the image. Disorder, terror, ruin shall overspread the whole earth; unheard-of anarchy, indescribable distress, shall seize upon all nations, which shall seem as in the agonies of dissolution.

[75] We have, says E. Irving, in the first four seals (in the Book of the Revelation), the four successive emperors in whose times and by whose chief instrumentality Paganism, the first enemy of the Church, was brought to its end, and Rome, its seat, laid low, as heretofore were Babylon and Jerusalem. The emperors referred to were Constantine the Great, Theodosius the Great, Honorius, and Justinian; the last of whom was likened by Procopiusa contemporary, to a demon sent by God to destroy men. The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, adds Mr. Irving, may be considered as belonging to the book with the seven seals, being the seventh seal thereof; or, in general, as the act of judgment upon the nations; or as the period of Christs iron reign; or as the period of the stones smiting the image to powderthe sevenfold act of judgment upon the Papal nations, beginning from the year 1792, at which the Papal period closed.

III. Its Growth and ultimate Greatness. The stone, after smiting the image, became a great mountain and filled the whole earth (Dan. 2:35). The interpretation: The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever (Dan. 2:44). In the corresponding vision it is said that to the Son of Man was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him (chap. Dan. 7:13-14). This growth and greatness of the stone the glorious part of the kings dream; that to which all the previous works of the Almighty, both in creation and providence, pointed; the end, as it is the reward, of the mediatorial undertaking of the Son of God (Php. 2:6-11; Isa. 53:11); the hope, comfort, and joy of the Church; the deliverance and blessedness of creation; the joyous burden of all the prophets, who testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow (1Pe. 1:11). In the full enlargement, universal prevalence, and glorious manifestation of that kingdom, which is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, we see Satans head bruised, and paradise restored to a sin-blighted and curse-stricken world; men blessed in Christ and all nations calling Him blessed; earth filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord; a pure language turned upon the people, so that they shall call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent; Israel saved, and the receiving back of Israel life from the dead to the world at large; the Fathers house filled with the sound of music and dancing at the return of the long-lost prodigal son; the whole creation delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom. 8:21-22). The prospect of this blessed consummation and glorious triumph of the kingdom of Christ in the earth, that which has gladdened, animated, and sustained the servants of God while battling with the power of evil in the world, and, as Christs witnesses, seeking to carry His gospel to the ends of the earth.

The time of rest, the promised Sabbath, comes,
Six thousand years of sorrow have well nigh
Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course
Over a sinful world; and what remains
Of this tempestuous state of human things,
Is merely as the working of the sea
Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest.
For He whose ear the winds are, and the clouds
The dust that waits upon His sultry march,
When sin hath moved Him and His wrath is hot,
Shall visit earth in mercy; shall descend
Propitious in His chariot, paved with love;
And what His storms have blasted and defaced
For mans revolt, shall with a smile repair.

From the prophecy of the Stone we may observe

1. The glorious future opened up for the world. A kingdom to be established and to fill the earth, that exceeds all preceding it in excellence, purity, and happiness, as well as in duration and extent. With heaven for its origin and the Son of God for its King, it will combine in it all the elements of true grandeur in its constitution, while it embraces in its influence unnumbered nations and countless myriads of souls. To be a subject of this kingdom, observes Dr. Cox, to share in its blessings, to be eternally associated with its people and their King, must be to be elevated to the height of all glory, to the very summit of our intelligent, sanctified, and immortal nature. But this kingdom is to fill the earth and to embrace in it all nations, thus restoring it to its original paradisaical condition [76].

[76] From this magnificent, most particular, and diversified symbol of the battle of Armageddon,whereof every part hath an allusion to some previous prophecy of the Apocalypse or of the other Scriptures, so that it is, as it were, the end and accomplishment of a hundred predictions,we have these certainties: that therein shall the spirit of Papal superstition perish, with all those superstitions and tyrannical forms of civil power and government which grew out of it; that therein shall perish the spirit of infidelity and the forms of destructiveness which are implied thereby; that therein also shall other forms of darkness and cruelty which inspired the heathen world likewise perish; that is, their strength and power shall perish therein, and the whole earth which they possessed and overruled shall become the reward and trophy of Him that sitteth upon the horse and His holy army.Irving.

2. The certainty of the Word of God and the truth of Christianity. The prediction regarding the stone as well as of the four great monarchies already in great part fulfilled. A King and a kingdom corresponding to the description in the vision have already appeared. Nearly eighteen centuries ago that divine but apparently humble stone-kingdom smote the glorious world-image. Idolatry and polytheism disappeared from the Roman empire, and the world was turned upside down. Christianity, with its humble and despised beginning, has, contrary to all human likelihood and expectation, already spread itself, in one form or other, in a greater or less degree, over most of the known world. Islands and groups of islands unknown to the ancients have accepted its blessings and adopted its name. Within the first thirty years after the death of its Founder, one of its chief promoters could testify that the gospel was preached, and brought forth fruit in all the world (Col. 1:6); and within the last eighty years, that same gospel of the kingdom has been published in at least 226 languages and dialects, in the form of translations of the Bible, or the more important parts of it, in scarcely fifty of which it had been printed before; every such translation representing, in a greater or less degree, the subjects of the heavenly kingdom. The King of the Jews is acknowledged already as King in almost all the nations, tribes, and languages of the earth [77]. The past and present fulfilment of the prophecy a proof of its divine origin, and a pledge of the future accomplishment of the rest. Heaven and earth may pass away, but my word shall not pass away. The stone has already broken the image in pieces and grown into a mountain, filling at least a considerable portion of the earth, and in the way of soon filling the whole. Therefore let all the house of Israel, and all the nations of the world, with their rulers and statesmen and philosophers, know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus who was crucified both Lord and Christ (Act. 2:36).

[77] Even a heathen poet, probably kindling his torch at the fire of inspired prophecy, through the medium of one of the Sibylline books, could sing in his most elevated strains the happy period awaiting the world in connection with Messiahs kingdom. Virgils Eclogue to Pollio is well known: Jam redit et virgo, &c. Heathen legend, it has been said, often seems a vague reflex of Holy Writ, and thus the golden age itself, ere justice left mankind, suggests the state before the Fall; and some broken and clouded rays of a truth once whole and pure, may perhaps be gleaned from this Eclogue as a witness to the desire of all nations. The author of one, at least, of the Sibylline books, however, is believed to have been a Jew. Pope, in the advertisement to his imitation of the Eclogue to Pollio, says: In reading several passages of the prophet Isaiah which foretell the coming of Christ and the felicities attending it, I could not but observe a remarkable parity between many of the thoughts and those in the Pollio of Virgil. This will not seem surprising when we reflect that the Eclogue was taken from a Sibylline prophecy on the same subject.

3. The characteristics of Christs kingdom.

(1.) Divine in its origina stone cut out of the mountain without hand (Isa. 7:14; Joh. 1:12-13).

(2.) Humble in its beginninga stone, small, rough, mean, insignificant in its appearance (Isa. 53:2; Php. 2:8).

(3.) Victorious over all oppositionbreaking to pieces the opposing kingdoms of the world and subduing all to itself (2Co. 10:4-5; Act. 5:39).

(4.) Onward in its progressgrowing from a little stone into a great mountain (Act. 6:7; Act. 12:24; Act. 19:20; Isa. 9:7).

(5.) Universal in its ultimate extentdestined to fill the whole earth (Psa. 2:8; Psa. 72:11; Psa. 72:17; Php. 2:9-10).

(6.) Everlasting in its durationnever to be destroyed, or to be left to another people, or succeeded by another kingdom, but to stand for ever (Psa. 72:17; Rev. 11:15; Isa. 9:7).

4. The encouragement given to seek the extension of Christs cause and kingdom in the world, and the duty of doing so. That kingdom and cause, however humble, weak, and small in any particular place, destined to be victorious over all opposition. The little one to become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation. The stone to become a mountain filling all the earth, whatever may oppose its progress. This consummation not only purposed and predicted, but provided for. The result guaranteed by Omnipotence. Not by might nor by power (of man), but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth; go ye therefore and teach all nations, &c; and lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world. Means to be employed by human instruments, but these means and instruments to be made effectual by a divine power accompanying them. Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, &c. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God. At the presence of the Ark, though accompanied only with the sound of rams horns and the human voice, the walls of Jericho fell. Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain. In submission to and personal interest in that kingdom is the only safety and happiness of sinful men. Christ and His kingdom the true Noahs ark. Inside, peace and safety; outside, a deluge of wrath. The door still open and the invitation issued, Come thou and all thy house into the ark. The day of our death or of the Lords appearing shuts us either in or out. Either of these may be at hand. It is for us to enter ourselves, and not to cease earnestly to persuade others to enter along with us. The time is short. Jesus waits. Tarry not. Enter now! [78]

[78] It is owned, says Dr. Pusey, by those who set these prophecies at the very latest, that nearly two centuries before our Lords ministry began, it wag foreseen that the kingdom of God should be established without human aid, to replace all other kingdoms, and to be replaced by none; to stand for ever, and to fill the earth. Above eighteen centuries have verified the prediction of the permanency of that kingdom, founded as it was by no human means, endowed with inextinguishable life, ever conquering and to conquer in the four quarters of the world; a kingdom one and alone since the world has been; embracing all times and climes, and still expanding; unharmed by that destroyer of all things human, Time; strong amid the decay of empires; the freshness and elasticity of youth written on the brow which has outlived eighteen centuries.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

III. DICTATORSHIPS DESTINYDan. 2:36-49

a. FIRST THREE KINGDOMS

TEXT: Dan. 2:36-39

36

This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.

37

Thou, O king, art king of kings, unto whom the God of heaven hath given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory;

38

and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens hath he given into thy hand, and hath made thee to rule over them all: thou art the head of gold.

39

And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee; and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.

QUERIES

a.

How could God give the kingdom to Nebuchadnezzar?

b.

Who are the other two kingdoms?

c.

Did they rule the entire earth?

PARAPHRASE

That was the dream you dreamed; now we shall tell you exactly what it means. You, O king Nebuchadnezzar, are a king over many lesser kings, for the God of heaven has given you rule over all the known civilized world and all the power, strength and glory you enjoy has been given you by Him. You are absolute monarch over all the inhabitants of the earth because God has given them into your hand. You and your glorious kingdom are represented on this great image you dreamed about by the head of gold. And after your kingdom has come to an end, another world ruler (Medo-Persian) will arise to take your place. This empire will be inferior in many ways to your empire. And after that kingdom has fallen, yet a third great empire (Greek) represented by the bronze belly of the statue, will rise to rule the world.

COMMENT

Dan. 2:36-38 . . . THOU, O KING, . . . ART THE HEAD OF GOLD . . . Having told Nebuchadnezzar exactly all the details of what he had dreamed, Daniel now prepares to give the king the divine interpretation of the dream. As may be seen from the succeeding verses, the main thrust of the whole dream is to predict the eventual, historical victory of God over principalities and powers and the establishment of Gods kingdom here on earth, at a particular time in the history of the earth. Daniel was to tell the king that someday pagan domination of the civilized world would be overcome by a supernatural kingdom.

Daniel designates Nebuchadnezzar as the first representative of absolute world domination. Other prophets speak of the king of Babylon in the same manner (cf. Jer. 27:5-7; Eze. 26:7). The king of Assyria, Sennacherib, made claim to universal domination, but Assyria was never the absolute ruler of the world in the same sense that Babylon and her successors were.

There can be no argument whatsoever with the designation of the first kingdom! Daniel explicitly states the head of gold represents Nebuchadnezzars Babylon. Gold was a fitting symbol for it too! Herodotus, who was at Babylon some ninety years after the era of Nebuchadnezzar, was amazed at the amount of gold which he found within the precincts of the sanctuary of Bel. In the smallest temple, which stood on the top of the tower of Babylon, was a table of gold. In the second temple below was an image of the god all of gold, seated on a golden throne with a golden base and in front of a large golden table. Outside the temple there was also an altar of solid gold. All the gold used to form these sacred objects amountedit is estimatedto eight hundred talents (a talent of gold would be worth approximately $100,000 in our inflationary society). From archaeological inscriptions left by Nebuchadnezzar we get the impression that his consuming interest was to build, beautify and glorify his beloved city Babylon. Nothing was too precious to be bestowed on his city. Herodotus records these instructions from Nebuchadnezzars inscriptions: . . . the walls of the cell of Merodach must be made to glisten like suns, the hall of his temple must be overlaid with shining gold, . . . and alabaster; and the chapel of his lordship which a former king had fabricated in silver, Nebuchadnezzar declares that he overlaid with bright gold (Herod. iii. 17). The roofing of Ekua, the cell of Merodach, is also overlaid with bright gold; and the cell of Nebo at Borsippa is treated in the same manner.
The reference, while made to the Babylonian kingdom, is made in personal form for it is in the person of the emperor himself that the empire is embodied. It is perfectly true that Nebuchadnezzars kingdom did not hold sway over the entire earth, but in the sense that it did hold dominion over the known, influential and powerful-enough-to-be-reckoned-with portions of the world it could be properly designated in the hyperbolical way Daniel did.

Dan. 2:39 . . . AFTER . . . ANOTHER KINGDOM INFERIOR TO THEE . . . AND ANOTHER THIRD KINGDOM . . . WHICH SHALL BEAR RULE OVER ALL THE EARTH . . . Now Daniel does not specify the second great world empire by name but there is enough symbolism and other details mentioned in Daniel chapter 7 and in history subsequent to these predictions of Daniel to make the task of discovering it rather simple.

With the coming of the Medo-Persian empire (the only true universal empire to follow the Babylonian) all the concentration of building simply for magnificence sake changed. The Semitic keseph, kaspu (silver) also means money since silver was the criterion of value and the medium of exchange then. When Daniel speaks of the gold giving place to the silver, he must mean that with the coming of the second kingdom, magnificence and outward show were exchanged for treasure, diligently collected by taxation and carefully hoarded up to form the muscles of war when needed. In Daniel, chapter 6, we read that an attempt was made by Darius, in the first year of the downfall of Babylon, to organize the finances of the empire. Herodotus shows that under Cambyses there was a system of taxation throughout the empire. However, it was under the second Darius, (Darius Hystaspes) that this system was brought to perfection. Herodotus furnishes us with a long and exact account of the 20 satrapies established by Darius and the yearly amount at which each was assessed. The tribute was paid in silver talents, except that of the Indians. The Indian satrapy was the richest of all, and yielded 360 talents of gold-dust, which the historian reckons as equivalent to 4,680 talents of silver, thus showing that silver was the standard of value. The Medo-Persian empire kept its eye steadily fixed on this main object and this is substantiated by the Old Testament (cf. Ezr. 4:13; Neh. 9:37). In consequence of this policy of the silver kingdom these kings became rich, and it is foretold in Dan. 11:2 that the fourth king, Xerxes, Shall be far richer than they all; and that when he is waxed strong through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Greece. The vast army which Xerxes collected for the invasion of Greece, and with which he crossed over into Europe, would have been an impossibility but for the system of finance perfected by his father Darius. So keen was Darius in amassing wealth that, according to Herodotus, he appeared to his subjects as a huckster, one who looked to making a gain in everything. The silver kingdom was stronger than the golden kingdom, and consequently it lasted very much longer. Babylon was master of the ancient world for only 70 years; Medo-Persia for over 200 years.

Silver was stronger than gold; but, as the Persian kings were soon to learn, brass was stronger than silver. The third kingdom of brass was that of the Greek empire which ruled over the world to a greater extent than either of the previous two. This was the empire built and ruled over such a short time by Alexander the Great. The power of the Medo-Persian empire built upon wealth was overcome by the force of arms wielded by a brave, idealistic and free peoplethe Greeks. Josephus saw in the mention of a brazen kingdom an unmistakeable prediction of the victorious arms of Alexander and his brazen-clad Greeks. Herodotus describes the striking difference between the brazenclad Greek warriors and the Persians clad in soft hats, tunics with sleeves, and trousers. The fame of Greek battle armor was making itself known earlier than Nebuchadnezzars time! Ezekiel speaks of the wares brought to the famous port of Tyre as including vessels of brass from Javan, Tubal and Heshech (Javan is simply another form of Ionian). The assumption that Alexander the Greats empire is the third is confirmed by the symbolism of Daniel chapter 7we shall deal with this symbolism in our comments there.
In one sense there is progressive inferiority in the symbolism from one world power to the next. But in another sense there is progressive symbolism of superiority. The former is progression downward in outward magnificence while the latter is progression upward in power and extension. Keil thinks the progression toward inferiority is symbolic of the downward trend of inner unity and cohesion of the successive empires. Calvin thought the devolution was in the moral sphere. The bronze part of the great statue was that of the abdomen and the thighs which symbolically may point to that which began as a unit (the Greek empire) and divided itself into two separate parts (Syria and Egypt) which were not reunited when the last empire (Rome) appeared on the scene.

QUIZ

1.

What is the main thrust of the whole dream of Nebuchadnezzar?

2.

Where are we to begin in designating which part of the great statue symbolizes which world empire?

3.

Why does the Babylonian empire so fittingly lend itself to being symbolized by gold?

4.

Why the Medo-Persian empire symbolized by silver?

5.

Why the Greek by bronze?

6.

Is there any significance to the progression of inferior metals?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(36) Wei.e., Daniel and his three friends, for to their intercession (Dan. 2:17-18) the revelation was due.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

36-38. The head of gold is Nebuchadnezzar, whom God has made king of kings, putting all peoples of the world and the beasts of the field beneath his hand, and who, in himself, represented the Babylonian world-empire.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Interpretation of the Vision ( Dan 2:36-45 ).

“This is the dream, and we will tell its interpretation before the king. You, O king, king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory. And wherever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven has he given into your hand, and has made you to rule over them all. You are the head of gold.”

This was not just flattery. Both Ezekiel and Jeremiah had made clear that they saw Nebuchadnezzar as God’s chosen instrument for judgment in the world. And certainly at that moment in time no kingdom compared with that of Nebuchadnezzar. The ‘we’ refers to Daniel and his God. It was Daniel who was speaking, but it was God Who was standing there before this mighty king with his exaggerated ideas of his own importance, and telling him what the future held.

The title ‘king of kings’, used here, was also used of Nebuchadnezzar by Eze 26:7. There is thus no reason to doubt that it was a description used about Nebuchadnezzar, and ties in with his subsequent erection of a great image, which quite possibly represented himself. But if so he not only saw himself as a king of kings, but as something more. And that was unusual for Mesopotamian monarchs. But Daniel, greatly daring, reminds him that it is the God of heaven who has made him great. His greatness is not of himself, nor is it of Marduk, it is of God.

‘The kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory.’ Words tumble over themselves to bring out how great he is. For this description compare Dan 5:18; and especially Dan 7:14, which is a reminder that although he is great, one day there will arise a king greater than he.

The reference to the beast of the field and the birds of the air is again to stress his grandeur. By the authority of the God of heaven he not only rules man, but the whole world of nature. Indeed, as far as the world of that time was concerned he ruled over the known world.

‘You are the head of gold.’ We need not argue whether this applies to Nebuchadnezzar or to his empire. At this point in time his empire was him. It included all that subsequently flowed from him, and his sons were but a continuation of himself. The gold represented the ultimate in splendour, but if we just split the image up into four metals we miss the point. And in the image we can see idolatry. All the kingdoms from top to bottom are based on idolatry.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Daniel Interprets the Dream In Dan 2:36-45 the prophet Daniel gives the interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Many Bible scholars believe that these kingdoms symbolized in this image represent the “Times of the Gentiles,” referred to in Luk 21:24 and Rom 11:25, a period of history in which follows the failure of the kingdom of Israel and precedes the restoration of the nation of Israel.

Luk 21:24, “And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”

Rom 11:25, “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”

It is important to note that today the world is still on the “Roman” calendar. The years that we record were made under the Roman Empire. Thus, in this sense we can say that we are still in the period of the Roman Empire. But we also have to acknowledge that influences of the previous cultures have trickled down to us through the centuries. It is as if each of these four Gentile empires have mixed with one another and have built upon one another to form the various world views that are in the world today. We have the mindset of Western civilization, which has been influenced by the Roman and Greek cultures. We have the Middle Eastern mindset that has been influenced by the Babylonian culture and Oriental cultures. These two world views are in conflict today as they try to live side by side in an increasingly smaller world brought together through technology and the media.

The head of gold represented the kingdom of Babylon which would rule for seventy years and fall at the hands of Darius the Mede in 539 B.C. (Dan 2:37-38). The breast and arms of silver represented the second kingdom of the Medes and Persians (Dan 2:39). Thus, this double kingdom was represented by two arms. This empire would rule for about 200 years and fall under the hands of Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. The belly and thighs of brass represent the third kingdom of Greece (Dan 2:39). The Grecian Empire ruled the world for 134 years and fell to the Romans in 197 B.C. The fourth kingdom of iron legs represents the kingdom of the Roman Empire. The two legs and two feet symbolize that the Roman Empire will be divided into the East and West (Dan 2:41). The length of the legs may represent the lengthy duration of this fourth empire. The Roman Empire lasted approximately five hundred years and fell from within and was overrun by barbarians.

Many scholars suggest that the feet and ten toes represent the revived Roman Empire, but we clearly live today under the Roman calendar that was created during the time of this ancient Empire. The number ten represents the concept of many in the Old Testament, perhaps representing the many nations that will fall under the influence of Roman culture prior to the consummation of the “times of the Gentiles.” (Luk 21:24) The feet and toes made up of part clay and part iron represent two civilizations that are unable to exist peacefully together. Some scholars interpret this as the Western Christian and capitalistic culture coming into conflict with the Eastern cultures of Islam, Hindu, and Buddha religions. Others give different interpretations. The ten toes may represent the ten kings who are prophesied to arise out of the old Roman Empire, perhaps from Europe (Dan 7:24, Rev 17:12).

Extra-biblical Literature Portraying Historical Periods Using the Symbolism of Precious Metals The book of Daniel was not the first ancient writing to characterize people groups using precious metals. John Goldingay says the earliest testimony is found in the writing of the Greek poet Hesiod (f. c. 750 to 650 B.C.), who divided the ages of humanity into five periods using the symbols of gold, silver, bronze, and iron to portray their characteristics similar to Daniel’s interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. [73] Goldingay says such analogies are also found in ancient Zoroastrian literature. For example, the ancient Persian texts of the Bahman Yasht (c. A.D. 6 th century) [74] and the Denkard (c. A.D. 10th century) [75] describe four periods of human history symbolized by gold, silver, steel, and that mixed with iron. Although these two texts were written in the medieval period, they are believed to reflect religious Zoroastrian beliefs of a much earlier time. [76]

[73] Hesiod writes, “First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus made a golden race of mortal men who lived in the time of Cronos when he was reigning in heaventhen they who dwell on Olympus made a second generation which was of silver and less noble by far. It was like the golden race neither in body nor in spiritZeus the Father made a third generation of mortal men, a brazen race, sprung from ash-trees; and it was in no way equal to the silver age, but was terrible and strongZeus the son of Cronos made yet another, the fourth, upon the fruitful earth, which was nobler and moreAnd again far-seeing Zeus made yet another generation, the fifth, of men who are upon the bounteous earthFor now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night” ( Works and Days 106-201) See Hesiod: The Homeric Hymns and the Homerica, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, in The Loeb Classical Library, eds. T. E. Page, E. Capps, and W. H. D. Rouse (London: William Heinemann, 1920), 10-17.

[74] The text reads, “Aharmazd spoke to Zaratst the Spitmn thus: ‘That root of a tree which thou sawest, and those four branches, are the four periods which will come. That of gold is when I and thou converse, and King Vistsp shall accept the religion, and shall demolish the figures of the demons, but they themselves remain for . . . concealed proceedings. And that of silver is the reign of Ardakhshir the Kayn king (Kal shah), and that of steel is the reign of the glorified (anshakrbn) Khsr son of Kvd, and that which was mixed with iron is the evil sovereignty of the demons with dishevelled hair of the race of Wrath, and when it is the end of the tenth hundredth winter (sat zim) of thy millennium, O Zaratst the Spitmn!’” ( Bahman Yasht 1.3-5) See E. W. West, Pahlavi Texts, part 1, in The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 5, ed. F. Max Mller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880), 192-193.

[75] The text reads, “The seventh fargard, T-ve-urvt, is about the exhibition to Zaratst of the nature of the four periods in the millennium of Zaratst. First, the golden, that in which Aharmazd displayed the religion to Zaratst. Second, the silver, that in which Vistsp received the religion from Zaratst. Third, the steel, the period within which the organizer of righteousness, Atrpd son of Mraspend, was born. Fourth, the period mingled with iron is this, in which is much propagation of the authority of the apostate and other villains, as regards the destruction of the reign of religion, the weakening of every kind of goodness and virtue, and the disappearance of honour and wisdom from the countries of Irn.” ( Denkard 9.8.1-5) See E. W. West, Pahlavi Texts, part 4, in The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 37, ed. F. Max Mller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1892), 180-181.

[76] John E. Goldingay, Daniel, in Word Biblical Commentary: 58 Volumes on CD-Rom, vol. 30, eds. Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker (Dallas: Word Inc., 2002), in Libronix Digital Library System, v. 2.1c [CD-ROM] (Bellingham, WA: Libronix Corp., 2000-2004), 40.

Figurative Meaning of the Number “Ten” in Scripture – The Hebrew phrase “ten times” ( ) is used several times in the Old Testament, being made up of two words, “ten” ( ) (H6235), and “times” ( ) (H6471). Although the literal translation is, “ten times,” John Gill understands the phrase “ten times” in Num 14:22 as an idiom to mean a rounded number, which is equivalent to “time after time,” thus “numerous times.” He says that although the Jews counted ten literal occasions when Israel tempted the Lord during the wilderness journeys, Aben Ezra gives this phrase a figurative meaning of “many times.” [77] T. E. Espin adds to the figurative meaning of Num 14:22 by saying that Israel had tempted the Lord to its fullness, so that the Lord would now pass judgment upon them, even denying them access into the Promised Land, which is clearly stated in the next verse. [78]

[77] John Gill lists ten literal occasions, “twice at the sea, Exodus 14:11; twice concerning water, Exodus 15:23; twice about manna, Exodus 16:2; twice about quails, Exodus 16:12; once by the calf, Exodus 32:1; and once in the wilderness of Paran, Numbers 14:1, which last and tenth was the present temptation.” John Gill, Numbers, in John Gill’s Expositor, in e-Sword, v. 7.7.7 [CD-ROM] (Franklin, Tennessee: e-Sword, 2000-2005), comments on Numbers 14:22.

[78] E. T. Espin and J. F. Thrupp, Numbers, in The Holy Bible According to the Authorized Version (A.D. 1611), with an Explanation and Critical Commentary and a Revision of the Translation, by Bishops and Clergy of the Anglican Church, vol. 1, part 1, ed. F. C. Cook (London: John Murray, 1871), 702.

We can see the same phrase “ten times” used as an idiom in several passages in the Scriptures:

Gen 31:7, “And your father hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times; but God suffered him not to hurt me.”

Num 14:22, “Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice;”

Neh 4:12, “And it came to pass, that when the Jews which dwelt by them came, they said unto us ten times, From all places whence ye shall return unto us they will be upon you.”

The NAB translates this phrase in Gen 31:7 as “time after time.”

NAB, “yet your father cheated me and changed my wages time after time . God, however, did not let him do me any harm.”

The number ten represents a counting system that is based on ten units. Thus, the number ten can be interpreted literally to represent the numerical system, or it can be given a figurative meaning to reflect the concept of multiple occurrences.

Illustration – Jesus told Peter that we are to forgive seventy seven times (Mat 18:22). In this passage, Jesus did not literally mean that we were to forgive only seventy seven times, but that we were to forgive as often as was necessary to forgive, which is many times.

Mat 18:22, “Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”

Thus, the ten toes probably carry the figurative meaning of many kingdoms under the control of the Roman Empire.

Dan 2:39  And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.

Dan 2:40  And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

Dan 2:39-40 Comments – The Decreasing Values of the Metals of the Image – Note the fact that the metals found in the image have a decreasing value as it goes from head to toes, but the metals also have an increasing strength. Daniel said that the succeeding kingdoms would be inferior to the first in wealth, power and size. However, the fourth kingdom would make up for its inferiority by its fierceness and brutality throughout its domain.

The Roman Empire was known for its brutality towards those under its dominion, particularly the Jewish nation. Josephus describes horrors experienced by his Jewish brother during the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 ( War of the Jews).

Dan 2:43  And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.

Dan 2:43 Comments The fourth kingdom holds a distinct characteristic from the other three kingdoms in that it becomes a melting pot of diverse cultures. The Roman Empire fits this characteristic in that it was a mixed culture from the beginning of the Empire, and it has dispersed its distinctive culture into modern times throughout all of the nations of the world. For example, the world today adheres to a Roman calendar, a Roman clock, and follows similar governmental structures.

Dan 2:44  And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

Dan 2:44 Comments The fifth kingdom is the Kingdom of Heaven, established upon the earth at Jesus’ First Coming and its members being the New Testament Church.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Dan 2:36 This [is] the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.

Ver. 36. This is the dream. ] By this time Nebuchadnezzar began much to admire Daniel, who modestly taketh in his associates, as Paul also doth Sylvanus and Timothy, when he saith, “And we will tell the interpretation thereof,” sc., Y , God assisting us.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Daniel

THE IMAGE AND THE STONE

Dan 2:36 – Dan 2:49 .

The colossal image, seen by Nebuchadnezzar in his dream, was a reproduction of those which met his waking eyes, and still remain for our wonder in our museums. The mingled materials are paralleled in ancient art. The substance of the dream is no less natural than its form. The one is suggested by familiar sights; the other, by pressing anxieties. What more likely than that, ‘in the second year of his reign’ Dan 2:1, waking thoughts of the future of his monarchy should trouble the warrior-king, scarcely yet firm on his throne, and should repeat themselves in nightly visions? God spoke through the dream, and He is not wont to answer questions before they are asked, nor to give revelations to men on points which they have not sought to solve. We may be sure that Nebuchadnezzar’s dream met his need.

The unreasonable demand that the ‘Chaldeans’ should show the dream as well as interpret it, fits the character of the king, as an imperious despot, intolerant of obstacles to his will, and holding human life very cheap. Daniel’s knowledge of the dream and of its meaning is given to him in a vision by night, which is the method of divine illumination throughout the book, and may be regarded as a lower stage thereof than the communications to prophets of ‘the word of the Lord.’

The passage falls into two parts: the image and the stone.

I. The Image.

It was a human form of strangely mingled materials, of giant size no doubt, and of majestic aspect. Barbarous enough it would have looked beside the marble lovelinesses of Greece, but it was quite like the coarser art which sought for impressiveness through size and costliness. Other people than Babylonian sculptors think that bigness is greatness, and dearness preciousness.

This image embodied what is now called a philosophy of history. It set forth the fruitful idea of a succession and unity in the rise and fall of conquerors and kingdoms. The four empires represented by it are diverse, and yet parts of a whole, and each following on the other. So the truth is taught that history is an organic whole, however unrelated its events may appear to a superficial eye. The writer of this book had learned lessons far in advance of his age, and not yet fully grasped by many so-called historians.

But, further, the human figure of the image sets forth all these kingdoms as being purely the work of men. Not that the overruling divine providence is ignored, but that the play of human passions, the lust of conquest and the like, and the use of human means, such as armies, are emphasised.

Again, the kingdoms are seen in their brilliancy, as they would naturally appear to the thoughts of a conqueror, whose highest notion of glory was earthly dominion, and who was indifferent to the suffering and blood through which he waded to a throne. When the same kingdoms are shown to Daniel in Dan 7:1 – Dan 7:28 they are represented by beasts. Their cruelty and the destruction of life which they caused were uppermost in a prophet’s view; their vulgar splendour dazzled a king’s sleeping eyes, because it had intoxicated his waking thoughts. Much worldly glory and many of its aims appear as precious metal to dreamers, but are seen by an illuminated sight to be bestial and destructive.

Once more there is a steady process of deterioration in the four kingdoms. Gold is followed by silver, and that by brass, and that by the strange combination of iron and clay. This may simply refer to the diminution of worldly glory, but it may also mean deterioration, morally and otherwise. Is it not the teaching of Scripture that, unless God interpose, society will steadily slide downwards? And has not the fact been so, wherever the brake and lever of revelation have not arrested the decline and effected elevation? We are told nowadays of evolution, as if the progress of humanity were upwards; but if you withdraw the influence of supernatural revelation, the evidence of power in manhood to work itself clear of limitations and lower forms is very ambiguous at the best-in reference to morals, at all events. Evil is capable of development, as well as good; and perhaps Nebuchadnezzar’s colossus is a truer representation of the course of humanity than the dreams of modern thinkers who see manhood becoming steadily better by its own effort, and think that the clay and iron have inherent power to pass into fine gold.

The question of the identification of these successive monarchies does not fall to be discussed here. But I may observe that the definite statement of Dan 2:44 ‘in the days of these kings’ seems to date the rise of the everlasting kingdom of God in the period of the last of the four, and therefore that the old interpretation of the fourth kingdom as the Roman seems the most natural. The force of that remark may, no doubt, be weakened by the consideration that the Old Testament prophets’ perspective of the future brought the coming of Messiah into immediate juxtaposition with the limits of their own vision; but still it has force.

The allocation of each part of the symbol is of less importance for us than the lessons to be drawn from it as a whole. But the singular amalgam of iron and clay in the fourth kingdom is worth notice. No sculptor or metallurgist could make a strong unity out of such materials, of which the combination could only be apparent and superficial. The fact to which it points is the artificial unity into which the great conquering empires of old crushed their unfortunate subject peoples, who were hammered, not fused, together. ‘They shall mingle themselves with the seed of men’ Dan 2:43, may either refer to the attempts to bring about unity by marriages among different races, or to other vain efforts to the same end. To obliterate nationalities has always been the conquering despot’s effort, from Nebuchadnezzar to the Czar of Russia, and it always fails. This is the weakness of these huge empires of antiquity, which have no internal cohesion, and tumble to pieces as soon as some external bond is loosened. There is only one kingdom which has no disintegrating forces lodged in it, because it unites men individually to its king, and so binds them to one another; and that is the kingdom which Nebuchadnezzar saw in its destructive aspect.

II. So we have now to think of the stone cut out without hands.

Three things are specified with regard to it: its origin, its duration, and its destructive energy. The origin is heavenly, in sharp contrast to the human origin of the kingdoms symbolised in the colossal man. That idea is twice expressed: once in plain words, ‘the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom’; and once figuratively as being cut out of the mountain without hands. By the mountain we are probably to understand Zion, from which, according to many a prophecy, the Messiah King was to rule the earth Psa 2:1 – Psa 2:12 ; Isa 2:3.

The fulfilment of this prediction is found, not only in the supernatural birth of Jesus Christ, but in the spread of the gospel without any of the weapons and aids of human power. Twelve poor men spoke, and the world was shaken and the kingdoms remoulded. The seer had learned the omnipotence of ideas and the weakness of outward force. A thought from God is stronger than all armies, and outconquers conquerors. By the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation, by the power of weakness in the preachers of the Cross, by the energies of the transforming Spirit, the God of heaven has set up the kingdom. ‘It shall never be destroyed.’ Its divine origin guarantees its perpetual duration. The kingdoms of man’s founding, whether they be in the realm of thought or of outward dominion, ‘have their day, and cease to be,’ but the kingdom of Christ lasts as long as the eternal life of its King. He cannot die any more, and He cannot live discrowned. Other forms of human association perish, as new conditions come into play which antiquate them; but the kingdom of Jesus is as flexible as it is firm, and has power to adapt to itself all conditions in which men can live. It will outlast earth, it will fill eternity; for when He ‘shall have delivered up the kingdom to His Father,’ the kingdom, which the God of heaven set up, will still continue.

It ‘shall not be left to other people.’ By that, seems to be meant that this kingdom will not be like those of human origin, in which dominion passes from one race to another, but that Israel shall ever be the happy subjects and the dominant race. We must interpret the words of the spiritual Israel, and remember how to be Christ’s subject is to belong to a nation who are kings and priests.

The destructive power is graphically represented. The stone, detached from the mountain, and apparently self-moved, dashes against the heterogeneous mass of iron and clay on which the colossus insecurely stands, and down it comes with a crash, breaking into a thousand fragments as it falls. ‘Like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors’ Dan 2:35 is the dbris, which is whirled out of sight by the wind. Christ and His kingdom have reshaped the world. These ancient, hideous kingdoms of blood and misery are impossible now. Christ and His gospel shattered the Roman empire, and cast Europe into another mould. They have destructive work to do yet, and as surely as the sun rises daily, will do it. The things that can be shaken will be shaken till they fall, and human society will never obtain its stable form till it is moulded throughout after the pattern of the kingdom of Christ.

The vision of our passage has no reference to the quickening power of the kingdom; but the best way in which it destroys is by transformation. It slays the old and lower forms of society by substituting the purer which flow from possession of the one Spirit. That highest glory of the work of Christ is but partially represented here, but there is a hint in Dan 2:35 , which tells that the stone has a strange vitality, and can grow, and does grow, till it becomes an earth-filling mountain.

That issue is not reached yet; but ‘the dream is certain.’ The kingdom is concentrated in its King, and the life of Jesus, diffused through His servants, works to the increase of the empire, and will not cease till the kingdoms of the world are the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ. That stone has vital power, and if we build on it we receive, by wonderful impartation, a kindred derived life, and become ‘living stones.’ It is laid for a sure foundation. If a man stumble over it while it lies there to be built upon, he will lame and maim himself. But it will one day have motion given to it, and, falling from the height of heaven, when He comes to judge the world which He rules and has redeemed, it will grind to powder all who reject the rule of the everlasting King of men.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Dan 2:36-45

36This was the dream; now we will tell its interpretation before the king. 37You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory; 38and wherever the sons of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all. You are the head of gold. 39After you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth. 40Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces. 41In that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. 42As the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. 43And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery. 44In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. 45Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future; so the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.

Dan 2:37 to whom the God of heaven has given The VERB (BDB 1095) is a Peal PERFECT. Notice the continuing emphasis on God’s sovereignty (cf. Dan 1:2; Dan 1:9; Dan 1:17). He allows kings to rise and prosper (i.e., the kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory).

Dan 2:38 This description of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign seems to mimic Gen 1:28 (cf. Jer 27:6; Jer 28:14).

This verse reminds me of God’s care for animals (cf. Jon 4:11; Psa 36:6 c). Animals may be a part of the new creation (cf. Isa 11:6-9; Isa 65:25 and possibly Rom 8:18-22).

You are the head of gold The statue of four succeeding human empires mimics chapter seven. Here the first kingdom is specifically identified (neo-Babylon, 626-539 B.C.). In Dan 8:20-21 the second (Medo-Persian, 539-333 B.C.) and third (Greece, 333-63 B.C.) are specifically identified. This makes the fourth kingdom (cf. Dan 2:40) Rome, which was the Mediterranean government in control of Palestine at the time of the birth of Jesus.

Dan 2:39 After you there will arise another kingdom Apparently this was to ease Nebuchadnezzar’s fear that his kingdom might be taken from him soon.

which will rule over all the earth This is either a metaphor for the known world or a specific local use of the word earth (as it is in Genesis 6-9, cf. Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture, pp. 158-169).

Dan 2:40 a fourth kingdom This kingdom is described in Dan 2:40-43; Dan 7:7-8. It is never named as are the first three. In some ways it refers to Rome, but also to a type of worldwide human government, which is opposed to God. It has a historical reference (Rome) and a future reference (end-time anti-God world empire, cf. Dan 9:25-27; Dan 11:36-45).

This second chapter sets the literary stage for the whole book.

Dan 2:41 it will be a divided kingdom This refers to the fourth kingdom and seems to imply that these will be successive kingdoms. There has been much discussion about the meaning of it being divided (BDB 1108, Peal PASSIVE PARTICIPLE): (1) the Roman Empire would divide into the east and west; (2) it refers to the attempted political marriages with Germanic tribes (cf. Dan 2:43 and TEV); or (3) it possibly refers to the distinction between the republic and later the dictatorship.

The toes of iron and clay mentioned in Dan 2:42 may point toward the literary meaning of divided. This empire will: (1) be strong in human power, but weak in spiritual power or (2) have both strong people (families) and weak people (families). This fundamental flaw will cause its destruction.

Dan 2:43

NASBthey will combine with one another in the seed of men

NKJVthey will mingle with the seed of men

NRSVas they will mix with one another in marriage

TEVthe rulers of that empire will try to unite their families by intermarriage

NJBthe two will be mixed together in human seed

This kingdom will attempt to save itself by human means (here probably political marriages, cf. Dan 11:6).

Dan 2:44 In the days of those kings It is very important to realize that the coming of the Messiah will be during the fourth kingdom. This is why I believe that it refers to the incarnation of Jesus at Bethlehem during Roman occupation of Palestine; therefore, those kings would refer to Roman Caesars of the first century and not future kings.

set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed This phrase is not related to the millennium which is a specific period of time (cf. Rev 20:1-6). This looks at a far wider scope of history in which the kingdom of God will be established when the Messiah will set up a perpetual, eternal kingdom (cf. 2Sa 7:13; 2Sa 7:16; Psa 45:6; Psa 89:36-37; Isa 9:7; Dan 4:3; Dan 6:26; Dan 7:14; Dan 7:18; Mic 5:2-5 a; Luk 1:33; 2Pe 1:11; Rev 11:15).

Notice how this kingdom is characterized.

1. set up by God (BDB 1110)

2. never be destroyed (BDB 1091)

3. not left for another people

4. crush (BDB 1089) and end (BDB 1104) all previous kingdoms

5. endure forever (BDB 1104)

This same powerful imagery describes this kingdom in Dan 7:14; Dan 7:27.

Dan 2:45 a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands This may be a veiled allusion to the virgin birth of the Messiah (cf. Gen 3:15; Isa 7:14) and the incarnation at Bethlehem. Even the Jewish commentators Rashi and Eben-Ezra see this as a Messianic passage.

without hands This is a metaphor of God’s agency (cf. Dan 8:25; Zec 4:6). This is another way that God’s control apart from human affect or agency is emphasized (cf. Heb 11:10; Heb 11:16).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Dan 2:36-37

Dan 2:36 ThisH1836 is the dream;H2493 and we will tellH560 the interpretationH6591 thereof beforeH6925 the king.H4430

Dan 2:37 Thou,H607 O king,H4430 art a kingH4430 of kings:H4430 forH1768 the GodH426 of heavenH8065 hath givenH3052 thee a kingdom,H4437 power,H2632 and strength,H8632 and glory.H3367

Dan 2:36-37

Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream Explained

“This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.”

Daniel starts out by telling Nebuchadnezzar that his kingdom, power, strength and glory came from God. And indeed it did as stated from the word of God by inspiration in Jer 29:23. Nebuchadnezzar was told at the onset of the interpretation that God was behind his success. Not the pagan false gods he served, but the God of Daniel, the one true and living God. Nebuchadnezzar had some trouble with his pride and would have done well to heed this gentile admonition from God through Daniel. Later in life, this pride resulted in his being basically dethroned for 7 years and placed into a position with the wild beasts of the fields (Dan 4:30-32).

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Gods Kingdom Triumphant

Dan 2:36-49

Our Lord probably refers to these five empires when He speaks of the times of the Gentiles. The empire of Babylon was followed by that of Medo-Persia under Cyrus; that by Greece under Alexander the Great; and that in turn by Rome led by the Caesars. Since the dissolution of the Roman Empire, the vast dominions of the East and the West have fallen, generally speaking, into some ten main divisions. There is, therefore, now nothing between us and the final setting up of the kingdom that is not made by human hands and shall never be destroyed. Note the striking anticipation of the outcome of Gentile dominion, in the prostration of supreme human power at the feet of a Jew. Evidently Daniel refused the kings homage, because we are told that Nebuchadnezzar answered him. Those who have shared our anxieties and prayers must not be forgotten in our hour of triumph, Dan 2:49. The heart of man may not be able to recall its forgotten dreams of innocence and truth, but it will recognize them when presented by the servant of God.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Dan 2:23, Dan 2:24

Reciprocal: Gen 40:12 – This

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Dan 2:36. Interpretation is from an original word which Strong defines with the simple phrase, An interpretation,” and neither is it rendered by any other word in the King James version of the Bible.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Dan 2:36-38. This is the dream, and we will tell the interpretation Here again Daniel shows his modesty, allowing his friends a share in the honour of interpreting the dream, because the interpretation was obtained by their joint prayers to God. Thou, O king, art a king of kings So Nebuchadnezzar is styled Eze 26:7, because he had divers kings for his vassals and tributaries. And Daniel here addresses him as if he were a very powerful king, and his empire very large and extensive. For the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, &c. The monarch might perhaps think, like some of his predecessors, that his conquests were owing to his fortitude and prudence: see Isa 10:13. But the prophet assures him, that his success must be primarily imputed to the God of heaven. Though most of the ancient eastern histories are lost, yet some fragments remain which speak of this mighty conqueror, and his extended empire. Berosus informs us, that he held in subjection Egypt, Syria, Phenicia, Arabia, and surpassed all the Chaldeans and Babylonians who reigned before him. Josephus, Philostratus, Megasthenes, and Strabo, assert, that he surpassed even Hercules, proceeded as far as Hercules pillars, subdued Spain, and led his army into Thrace and Pontus. But his empire was of no long duration, for it ended in his grandson Belshazzar, not seventy years after the delivery of this prophecy, nor above twenty-three years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar; which may be the reason why Daniel speaks of him as the only king, the rest being to be considered as nothing; nor do we read of any thing good or great performed by them. Bishop Newton: see notes on Jer 25:9; Jer 25:11; Jer 25:15-26; Jer 27:6-8. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, hath he made thee ruler over them all The great monarchies assumed to themselves the title of being lords of the world; see Dan 6:25; Dan 8:5; so the word , the world, commonly signifies the Roman empire, in the New Testament. Thou art this head of gold Thou and thy family and thy representatives. The Babylonian therefore was the first of these kingdoms, and it was fitly represented by the head of fine gold, on account of its great riches, and the splendour and glory of its capital city, Babylon, which for the same reason was called the golden city, Isa 14:4, a golden cup, Jer 51:7, and the lady of kingdoms, Isa 47:5; Isa 47:7, where see the notes. The Assyrian is usually said to be the first of the four great empires, and the name may be allowed to pass, if it be not taken too strictly: for the Assyrian empire, properly so called, was dissolved before this time, and the Babylonian was erected in its stead; but the Babylonians are sometimes called Assyrians in the best classic authors, as well as in the Holy Scriptures. Bishop Newton.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Dan 2:36-49. The Interpretation of the Dream.According to Daniels interpretation the colossal statue is a pictorial representation of the course of history. Four empires succeed each other and are finally destroyed by a fifth which is of Divine origin (not made with hands), and ultimately dominates the world. We can identify these empires with practical certainty, and the identification proves that the statue depicts the history of 450 years, roughly speaking from 600 to 150 B.C. It will be observed that, according to the figure, history degenerates through this period. The gold becomes silver, the silver brass, and the brass iron. The golden empire is undoubtedly the Babylonian. Nothing could exceed the unstinted praise which the writer lavishes upon Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 2:37 f.). The silver kingdom is that of the Medes, which the Book of Daniel interposes between the Babylonian and Persian Empires. The brass kingdom is that of the Persians, which was established by Cyrus in 538. The iron kingdom is the Greek, which was set up by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. The two feet represent the two divisions of the Greek kingdom, i.e. the kingdom of the Seleucid over Syria and Babylon, and the kingdom of the Ptolemies over Egypt, which date from the beginning of the fourth century. The author of Daniel, writing about 168, looks forward to a speedy advent of a fifth or Messianic kingdom, which is to destroy the other kingdoms and sift them like chaff on the summer threshing floors. Four of the kingdoms, therefore, belong to the past, the fifth is the ideal kingdom of the future. It will be observed that the nearer the writer comes to his own day, the more specific are the details which are introduced into the picture.

Dan 2:37. Note the description of the glories of Nebuchadnezzars reign. He is described as king of kings, and (Dan 2:38) his rule extends over the whole of the habitable world.

Dan 2:39. another kingdom: the Median.third kingdom: the Persian.

Dan 2:40. fourth kingdom: Macedonian or Greek. Charles thinks that this verse is corrupt and suggests that it ought to run, And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: for as iron breaketh in pieces and shattereth all things, so shall it break in pieces and crush the whole earth.

Dan 2:41. a divided kingdom, i.e. the Seleucid and the Ptolemies, who divided Alexanders empire between them, the former representing the iron, the latter the clay.

Dan 2:44 f. The description of the ideal or Messianic kingdom, the advent of which in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes is to overthrow the other empires and control the destiny of the world.

Dan 2:46. worshipped Daniel. Neither the English word worship nor the Heb. original in this passage necessarily implies the payment of Divine honours, though both are used with that connotation. Yet the mention of the oblation and sweet odours seems to imply that the writer intended the word to be taken in that sense. If it were not for Dan 2:46 b we should be justified in assuming that the term worship meant no more then than it does in the formula of the Prayer Book, with my body I thee worship.

Dan 2:47 suggests that the homage paid to Daniel was in reality paid to God.

Dan 2:48. chief governor: most scholars suppose that each class of the wise men had its own head, and that the title here used implies that Daniel was made governor or prefect of them all.

Dan 2:49. in the gate of the king: remained attached to the court of the king.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

7. The interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream 2:36-45

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Daniel carefully distinguished the dream (Dan 2:31-35) from its interpretation (Dan 2:36-45) for the sake of clarity. His reference to "we" telling the interpretation is probably an editorial plural. This form of speech allowed Daniel to present himself humbly to the king and at the same time remind him that God had given the dream and its interpretation (cf. 1Co 2:6).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)