Today’s post is about Prophecy of Daniel 2 Commentary (Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream) Part 2.
This is part 2 of a two part series. PART 1 dealt with Daniel 2:1-30.
Prophecy of Daniel 2 Commentary: Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream and Interpretation
‘31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.
32 This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.’ Daniel 2:31-35 KJV
Because Nebuchadnezzar was an idolater, at first he was very pleased to see the image. But when he saw the image broken to pieces and blown away by the wind, hew was shocked! Was all his worship of images completely worthless?
As the feet of the image were of clay, so the foundation of worldly riches and worldly greatness is only dust. Its end is only to be blown away.
We can imagine how interested and pleased the king was to hear Daniel carefully explain this mysterious dream which he had forgotten. We can almost hear him shouting with excitement, ‘Yes, that is exactly my dream. Thank you! Please go on and tell me what it means.
’36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.
38 And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.’ Daniel 2:36-38.
The king is proud of himself as he realizes that his kingdom, ‘the glory of kingdoms’, is represented by the head of gold. But Daniel quickly reminds him that all his wealth and authority, and the honor in which he rejoices, are not his because of his valor and skill at arms. They were given to him by the Great King, the God of Heaven, in trust for the good of mankind.
Daniel 2 Commentary: The First Great World Empire
The kingdom of Babylon was founded by Nimrod, who rebelled against God (Genesis 10:8-10). It grew to greatness in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, and became a kingdom of great wealth and glory in the world. In building Babylon, his capital city, Nebuchadnezzar had built the greatest city that the world had known up to that time.
The city was a wonder of the ancient world, bigger than ordinary cities of that time, being about 10 miles in circumference. The great River Euphrates flowed through it. Great walls surrounded the city. Huge brass gates guarded the entrances to the city by way of the river Euphrates. Its lovely gardens and magnificent palaces were kept in good condition by slaves.
Two great palaces were built one on either side of the River Euphrates, joined by a tunnel running under the river to allow people to go back and forth with ease. According to Isaiah, he hears Babylon speaking of itself: ‘I shall be a lady for ever….I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children. Isaiah 47:7,8. This kingdom of Babylon was indeed 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. Daniel 2:39.
Nebuchadnezzar ruled for forty-three years. He was succeeded by five kings who were very weak, of whom the last was Belshazzar (See Daniel 5). He was the ruler on that very night when the Medes and Persians, who had surrounded the city of Babylon, secretly entered its walls through the riverbed and took the kingdom. Daniel was still living at that time, now a very old man.
The prophet Isaiah had clearly prophesied the fall of Babylon nearly two hundred years before. He was so precise in his prophetic foreknowledge that he mentioned the name of the second kingdom of the world, the Medes and Persians (Isaiah 13:17-19). Furthermore, in his prophecy he mentioned the very name of the king (Cyrus) who would humiliate the proud city (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1-3).
When Babylon’s last night arrived, Cyrus and his army had the walls of the city surrounded, ready to take it by force. The Babylonian soldiers and city’s inhabitants were celebrating a holiday. The food stored within the city was said to be sufficient to last them for twenty years, and there were ample gardens for growing more food.
There was no contemporary army able to break down walls so thick, nor destroy such gates of brass! But the prophecy was that Babylon would be destroyed. In a way that those who defended the city would never understand, the word of the Lord would be fulfilled completely. Cyrus is a brilliant general. Having received news that upon a certain day the city’s inhabitants would be holding a great celebration, he decides to conquer his enemies while they are feasting and drinking!
He diverts the waters of the Euphrates River into lowland, to make a lake outside the city. Then, as the waters of the river slowly and silently subside, he and his soldiers stealthily creep under the gates of brass to enter the city at midnight, walking on the river bottom.
There they find the gateways leading up from the river into the city left open by drunken watchmen, just as the Lord had promised he should find them (Isaiah 45:1). Brandishing their swords and shouting their battle cries, the soldiers rush upon their drunken Babylonian victims. That night the Babylonian king Belshazzar is slain upon his throne together with the rulers of his kingdom. The second kingdom of silver, the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, now begins to rule the world!
Daniel 2 Commentary: Second Great World Kingdom
This kingdom is represented by the breast and arms of silver. Even as silver is of less value than gold, so the kingdom of the Medes and Persians was not as wealthy as that of Babylon. But despite that, its first king, Cyrus, conquered a vast territory from the Aegean Sea to the borders of India.
The Medes and Persians ruled the world for about two hundred years, beginning in 538 BC, but the seeds of their destruction were already germinating within their kingdom. Their pride and cruelty, together with their drunkenness, led to their eventual downfall. They would be conquered by a small but courageous nations from the west which was ruled by a king who at that time was a mere youth. Although the Medes and Persians were very wealthy at this time and could afford many soldiers and many weapons, and though they were many in number, they were defeated by a vastly smaller Greek army under the leadership of Alexander the Great. This took place in 331 BC at the battle of Arbela and Alexander’s soldiers spent weeks gathering the spoils of war! Now the third world kingdom of the Greeks has begun to bear rule over all the earth. History has now passed from the breast and arms of silver to the thighs of brass of the image, as we were shown in the king’s dream.
Daniel 2 Commentary: Third Great World Kingdom
After a relatively brief reign of eight years, King Alexander died in Babylon. Although he had conquered the whole world, he struggled to control his own drinking habits.
How vain and worthless is all the honour and power and glory of this world for any man who cannot rule his own spirit! ‘He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.’ Proverbs 16:32. Alexander was his own worst enemy: his weakness was his love of drink. Many times he had killed his own friends in drunken debauches. One day he even encouraged twenty of his soldiers to drink themselves to death. He became ill after one of his drunken spells, and died in June 323 BC at the age of only 32. His kingdom collapsed. He tore down that which he himself had built up.
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. Daniel 2:40. KJV.
In 168 BC the Greeks were conquered by another nation, also small and courageous, which came form still further west. This was the kingdom of the Romans. Thus kingdom has passed from the thighs of brass to the legs of iron: the Roman kingdom.
Daniel 2 Commentary: Fourth Great World Empire
Each successive component in this great image is of less value, but of greater strength. Satan has learnt with each succeeding kingdom of world history how better to bind with chains the souls of men. Rome was a stronger kingdom than any of those that went before it. Although the English historian Edward Gibbon did not believe the Bible, in the following words he unwittingly confirms what Daniel says about Rome.
‘The arms of the Republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorius in war, advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrate, 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 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. III. chapter 38, page 364.
Rome ruled over a larger section of the face of the earth than any previous kingdom. Even parts of Africa were incorporated into the Roman Empire.
’41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.
42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.’ Daniel 2:41,42. KJV
Rome itself, although the strongest of kingdoms, could not last forever. In the year AD 476 it was broken into ten different parts represented by the ten toes of the feet of the image, which were of iron and clay mixed together. Some of these ten portions still remain to this day, such as England, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland and Italy.
’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.’ Daniel 2:43. KJV
This verse tells us plainly that Rome would be the last power on earth to rule the territory of these ten kingdoms. Men have tried repeatedly to unite these portions of the old Roman Empire into one. Ambitious men have thought that if Alexander could conquer the whole world, they could also. But all their efforts have been in vain. ‘They shall not cleave one to another’ proves to us that the Book of Daniel was written by the inspiration of the Spirit of God.
Daniel 2 Bible Study: King Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream Statue
Every possible effort has been made in Europe by various men to break this prophecy. From time to time, kingdoms have arisen retaining some of the strength of the old Roman Empire, inasmuch as the ‘iron’ is still mixed with ‘miry clay’. But the strong ones have never been able to conquer and subdue all the others.
Charlemagne tried to resurrect the Empire of Rome, and was even crowned Emperor by the Pope in Rome on Christmas day, AD 800. But his kingdom was soon broken into pieces. In the days of Luther, Charles V tried, and he also failed.
In the days of the prosperity of France, Louis XIV the great proudly tried to unite Europe into one empire, and he also failed. Napoleon almost succeeded after conquering much of Europe; but in the end, as he lay upon his death bed, he is said to have cried out, ‘O God, you have been too strong for me!’ These few words of the Holy Scriptures were stronger than all the armies of Europe: ‘They shall not cleave one to another.’
In the last century various European rulers have tried to unite Europe under one government. Queen Victoria of England followed the plan of marrying her children and grandchildren among the various royal families of Europe. She thought that if all the ruling families of Europe were intermarried and were related to one another they would never think of war. But her plan completely failed. To the surprise of the whole world, the First Word War began in 1914. The Kaiser of Germany dreamed of controlling all parts of Europe. He also was defeated.
After World War I, Europe reeled under the burden of reconstruction and recovery, but hardly two decades had passed before the clouds of war again hung low over that continent. This time it was Adolf Hitler who pushed Europe over the precipice into a war we all want to forget.
After 1945, sick of war, some of Europe’s visionary leaders began to edge Europe towards a new framework for cooperation and peace called the European Union. The six ‘founding’ nations have been joined since 1952 by twenty-one other nations – Bulgaria and Romania being the latest additions. There are a number of ‘candidate’ countries as well who might join in the course of time.
But efforts to consolidate more power in the hands of ‘the powers that be’ in Brussels have proved very tricky. “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), symbolic of modern Europe.
Our focus on Daniel 2, however, shouldn’t be only on the past, on decayed and dead kingdoms, because the hope that the prophecy presents is for the future. It ought to be greatly reassuring that the same prophecy that has proved trustworthy in delineating—in advance—the grand trajectory of human history points to a “joyful end”—the coming of God’s eternal kingdom, the one that Jesus bought for us with His blood.
The great statue, symbolic of this world, will be destroyed, crushed by the stone cut out without hands, and nothing will be left of these earthly empires (Dan. 2:35). Everything here, everything of this world—its glories and powers and achievements—will be gone. Only remaining will be those redeemed by Jesus, those covered and transformed by His righteousness, “the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe” (Rom. 3:22). Everything else will be “like the chaff of the summer threshing floors” that the wind blows away and “no trace” remains (Dan. 2:35).
That’s the promise, the reassuring promise of this final kingdom. And because Daniel was so right about the first four, how reasonable—how rational—to trust him on this, the last kingdom, the fifth one, which lasts forever.
Can you Trust The Prophecies of The Bible?
At the height of Hitler’s power, the Signs of the Times relying on Bible prophecy, fearlessly predicted the dictator’s downfall. Arthur S. Maxwell was the editor of Signs of The Times at that time. Below is his son, C Mervyn Maxwell recollection of what happened.
“I was fourteen when Hitler violated Poland’s Danzig Corridor. I can still see my family hovering around our radio listening to Britain’s declaration of war, as the shortwave came in successively loud and soft, clear and garbled. The future was dark, but I had been brought up on Daniel 2, and I knew that sooner or later Hitler would be defeated either by the allies or by the second coming of Christ.
After Dunkirk and the fall of France, some students of prophecy cautioned my father, Arthur S Maxwell, editor of Signs of the Times not to continue writing editorials on Hitler’s future defeat. ‘How do we know that the prophecy of Daniel 2 will apply in this case?’ they asked. My father replied by dedicating the issue for July 2, 1940, to the interpretation of Daniel 2 and inviting his readers to preserve their copies!
“This prophecy is the only one in the Bible,” he wrote buoyantly, “to which the words ‘certain’ and ‘sure’ are both attached [Daniel 2:45]. If for no other reason, with these two seals upon it we can surely trust it with complete confidence. It cannot fail.”
Click here for the next study in the bible prophecies of Daniel – Daniel 3 Commentary: Fiery Furnace (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego).
Related Posts:
Daniel 2 Commentary and Bible study – William H Shea
Prophet Daniel: Book of Daniel 8 Commentary by Dr. William H Shea
Book of Daniel chapter 7 Commentary and Study by William H Shea
Prophet Daniel: Study of Daniel Chapter 3-6 by William H Shea
Who Is The King of The North in Daniel 11 – Dwight Nelson Sermon
Daniel 2 Bible Study and Commentary Video
Please find below a video bible featuring Ty Gibson and James Rafferty discussing Daniel 2.
Please share this Daniel 2 commentary with your friends and family.
