Empires and His Kingdom

Only Daniel could interpret the troubling dream of the Babylonian King, unveiling the future of empires and the final kingdom – Daniel 2:1-49. The second and third chapters of the Book of Daniel present a single story told in two parts. First, Nebuchadnezzar dreams of an enormous image composed of several materials, which Daniel then interprets. Second, Nebuchadnezzar attempts to implement his dream by erecting a great golden image on “the Plain of Dura.”

In Daniel, the God of Israel reigns over the affairs of men and kingdoms, but He does so in an ironic fashion, using the words of powerless Jewish exiles to direct the course of History.

[Photo by Gaël Gaborel - OrbisTerrae (Cognac) on Unsplash]

Both Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 end with the Babylonian king acknowledging the supremacy of the God of Israel, and Daniel’s interpretation of his dream provides the fourfold structure behind his later vision of the four beasts ascending from the Sea.

Nebuchadnezzar had his dream in the second year of his reign, which was also the second year of Daniel’s education in Babylon. The events of Chapter 2 occurred before the completion of his three-year education in “the wisdom of Babylon.” Daniel’s ability to interpret the dream was not due to anything acquired from Babylonian culture, literature, or science:

• “Now, as for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom. And Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. And at the end of the days which the king had appointed for bringing them in, the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king communed with them. And among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; therefore, they stood before the king. And in every matter of wisdom and understanding, concerning which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his realm”- (Daniel 1:17-20).

In Chapter 2, the king summoned all the “astrologers, enchanters, sorcerers and the Chaldeans to tell him his dream.” Daniel was not part of this group. His ability to interpret dreams was the gift of God. It was not acquired through any of the famous Mesopotamian arts of divination - (Daniel 2:1-16).

Unable to remember his dream, the king commanded “the Chaldeans” to make both the contents of his dream and its interpretation known to him. Three times he ordered this, each time threatening death for failure, but also promising rewards for success.

The Babylonian wise men acknowledged that only the gods could do what the king demanded, but the gods of Mesopotamia did “not dwell with flesh.” Unlike Babylonian deities, Yahweh dwells among men and is thus well able to reveal hidden things.

Furious, Nebuchadnezzar determined to destroy “all the wise men of Babylon,” which would have included Daniel and his three companions (“The decree went forth that the wise men should be slain, and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain”).

Consequently, Daniel went to the king and requested time to reveal the content of the dream and its interpretation. To approach the king without a summons was risking death. Daniel then prayed with his companions for God to reveal the matter - (Daniel 2:17-19).

• (Daniel 2:20-23) – “Daniel responded and said, Let the name of God be blessed from age to age, in that wisdom and might belong to him. And he changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings, giving wisdom to the wise and knowledge to them who are skilled in understanding. He reveals the deep things and the hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness and light with him does dwell. Unto you, O God of my fathers, do I give thanks and praise, in that wisdom and might you have given to me; yea, already you have made known to me that which we desired of you, for the matter of the king have you made known to us.”

Daniel’s thanksgiving expresses the theological center of the Book. God gives the nations and political power to whomever He pleases. True wisdom belongs to the God who grants sovereignty to His lowliest servant, and He is sovereign over the Cosmos and Human History.

Another group of Babylonian “experts” is introduced, “the astrologers.” This translates the Aramaic term ‘gezar’ (Strong’s Concordance - #H1505), which means “cut, to divide.” The astrologers of Babylon were known as “the dividers of the heavens,” reflecting their practice of dividing the heavens into spheres of influence that supposedly governed human affairs - (Daniel 2:27-28).

THE INTERPRETATION

To Daniel, God revealed what things “must come to pass in later days.” The chronological reference is ambiguous. The statement means no more than a point in the future. The same ambiguity is found in verse 45 - “God made known to the king what will come to pass after this.”

Next, Daniel described the contents of the dream. Nebuchadnezzar saw a colossal statue with a head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and with both feet of mixed iron and clay. The entire image represented a single entity, despite its several components.

Then the king saw a “stone cut out of the mountain without hands.” The stone struck the feet of the image, pulverizing “the iron, clay, brass, silver and gold,” and the small stone then “became a great mountain that filled the whole earth.”

The image of the “stone cut without hands” reflects the Hebrew practice of building altars with uncut stones. The connection of God’s dwelling place to a great mountain, which is common in Scripture, also lies in the background - (Exodus 15:17-18, 20:22-25, Psalm 78:54, Micah 4:1, Isaiah 66:20). For example,”

• “They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of Yahweh, as the waters cover the sea” – (Isaia 11:9).

Daniel declared that Nebuchadnezzar was “the king of kings.” Nevertheless, his kingship was derived from “the God of the heavens.” The head of gold represented the king and his kingdom - (“You are the head of gold”).

The Babylonian king was the head, which suggests that, from the biblical perspective, Babylon was the first great World Empire. This makes sense since the Neo-Babylonian Empire was linked to “the Land of Shinar” in Chapter 1, the place where the Tower of Babel incident occurred - (Genesis 10:10, 11:1-9, Daniel 1:1-2).

The narrative provides limited information about the second and third kingdoms of the dream.  The second kingdom was made of silver, and therefore, it is “inferior” to the first, the head of gold. The third realm is represented by bronze, and it will “bear rule over all the earth.”

Whether the third and fourth kingdoms are also inferior to Babylon is not stated, though the decreasing value of each metal and material makes this a strong possibility. Silver is less valuable than gold, bronze than silver, and so on. The third kingdom will rule over the earth, signifying its political and military prowess.

The fourth kingdom will be strong as iron because it “shatters and crushes all things.” Precisely who or what is to be crushed is not stated. The comparison indicates no more than its ability to destroy.

The feet and toes are “part of clay and part of iron.” The two lower legs are of unmixed iron. The mixture represents division. It will be strong like iron, but also brittle like clay used for pottery.

The mixed materials of the feet and toes suggest brittleness in the latter part of the fourth kingdom. While the toes and feet are composed of clay and iron, in the interpretation, the two materials are treated together. No significance is assigned to the distinction between toes and feet or to their number, presumably ten. The mixture is explained in verse 43:

• “And whereas you saw the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but there will be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with miry clay.  And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom will be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas you saw the iron mixed with miry clay, they will mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they will not cleave one to another, even as iron does not mingle with clay” – (Daniel 2:42-43).

The interpretation concludes with the establishment of God’s everlasting kingdom:

• “And in the days of those kings, the God of the heavens will establish a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will its sovereignty be left to another people. But it will shatter and consume all these kingdoms, and it will stand for ever” – (Daniel 2:44).

“Those kings” is a reference to the four kingdoms symbolized by the entire statue of the king’s dream. The stone cut from the mountain struck the single image on its feet and shattered “all these kingdoms.”

Thus, sovereignty passed from one kingdom to the next as history progressed, but the earlier regimes did not disappear entirely. Something from each realm survived in its several successors until the destruction of the entire image at the end of the age.

The image was destroyed by the stone, which symbolizes the Kingdom of God. The cutting of the stone “without hands” points to divine intervention, not human effort. Daniel concluded his interpretation:

• “Forasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it shattered the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God has revealed to the king what will come to pass after this. And the dream is certain, and the interpretation is sure” – (Daniel 2:45).

Nebuchadnezzar then prostrated himself before Daniel, an act that anticipated the future replacement of the World Empire by the kingdom of God. The sovereign “head of fine gold” paid homage to the powerless representative of the kingdom that will be “cut out of the mountain without hands.”

• “Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, and gave homage to Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odors to him. The king answered Daniel, and said, Of a truth, your God is the God of gods, and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing you have been able to reveal this mystery. Then the king made Daniel great, and gave him many great gifts, and made him to rule over the whole province of Babylon, and to be chief governor over all the wise men of Babylon. And Daniel requested of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, over the affairs of the province of Babylon” – (Daniel 2:46-49).

And so, the pagan king honored Daniel by appointing him the governor of the Province of Babylon. The dream of Nebuchadnezzar with its image of God’s kingdom subjugating the kingdoms of this age finds its proleptic fulfillment in the elevation of Daniel to governorship.

In the Book of Revelation, Daniel’s declaration to Nebuchadnezzar concerning the things that must come to pass is echoed four times. However, Revelation changes the chronological reference, “in later days,” to “soon”:

• “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants, what things must come to pass soon <> Blessed is he that reads, and they that hear, the words of the prophecy and keep the things that are written in it, for the season is at hand” - (Revelation 1:1-3).

• “Write therefore the things which you saw, and the things that are, and the things that will come to pass after these” - (Revelation 1:19).

• “Come up here, and I will show you the things that must come to pass after these” - (Revelation 4:1).

• “The God of the spirits of the prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which must come to pass soon” - (Revelation 22:6).

The things that for Daniel awaited fulfillment in a remote future began to find their fulfillments following, and as a result of, the Death and Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The age of fulfillment has arrived in him, and the Kingdom of God has been “cut out of the mountain without hands” and is now progressing on the Earth.

The Book of Revelation also uses the image of four distinct kingdoms that will precede the final Kingdom of God, except Revelation uses the language of the seventh chapter of Daniel, the vision of four beasts ascending from the sea:

• “And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority” – (Revelation 13:2. Compare Daniel 7:1-8).

The picture of the stone “shattering” the World Empire also features in a key messianic prophecy from the Second Psalm, and in the Book of Revelation:

• “You will shepherd the nations with a scepter of iron. As a potter’s vessel, you will shatter them” – (Psalm 2:9).

• “And he that overcomes, and he that keeps my works to the end, to him I will give authority over the nations. And he will rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are shattered” – (Revelation 2:26-27).

• “And she brought forth a son, a male, who was going to shepherd all the nations with a scepter of iron” – (Revelation 12:5).

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SEE ALSO:

• Empires Rise and Fall - (Only the Kingdom of God will endure. All other political entities are temporary, and even now, they are in the process of passing away)

• God Grants Rulership - (God gave the kingdom of Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, but He also equipped Daniel and his companions for service in the court of Babylon)

• The World Empire - (Imperial arrogance is the legacy of the Tower of Babel, humanity’s first attempt, but certainly not its last, to impose the world empire)

• Chaque Empire Se Termine - (Seul le Royaume de Dieu durera. Toutes les autres entités politiques sont temporaires et, même maintenant, elles sont en train de disparaître)