seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Daniel 2:24 Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, “Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him.”
25 Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, “I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means.”
26 The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), “Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?”
27 Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, 28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you were lying in bed are these:
29 “As Your Majesty was lying there, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. 30 As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive, but so that Your Majesty may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.
31 “Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. 32 The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. 34 While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
36 “This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. 37 Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; 38 in your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.
39 “After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. 40 Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. 41 Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. 42 As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. 43 And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.
44 “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. 45 This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
“The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”
46 Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. 47 The king said to Daniel, “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.”
48 Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men. 49 Moreover, at Daniel’s request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon, while Daniel himself remained at the royal court.
1182025118202511820251182025
Here's the link to the commentary I read.
You are this head of gold: Nebuchadnezzar was clearly said to be the head of gold. After him would come three other kingdoms, each represented by the different materials Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. After the succession of kingdoms, then came the final kingdom set up by God.
The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure: This prophetic dream was clearly fulfilled in history.
i. Three dominating empires came after Babylon: Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. The nature of these empires was accurately reflected by the nature of the image Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream.
ii. The empires succeeding Babylon were inferior to Nebuchadnezzar’s head of gold in the sense of their centralization of absolute power. Nebuchadnezzar was an absolute monarch, and the succeeding empires were progressively less so. They were larger and lasted longer than Babylon, but none held as much centralized power as Nebuchadnezzar did.
iii. “Babylon, the head of gold, was an absolute autocracy. Persia, a monarchial oligarchy with the nobles equal to the king in all but office, is represented by silver. Greece is set forth by brass, indicated the still lower value of it aristocracy of mind and influence… Rome, a democratic imperialism, with military dominion dependent upon the choice of army and citizenry and administered in the spirit of martial law, is set forth by iron.” (Newell)
iv. The third kingdom of bronze was the one which shall rule over all the earth. Indeed, Alexander’s Grecian Empire was the largest among those compared in the image (except the final government of the Messiah).
v. The Babylonian Empire stood for 66 years; the Medo-Persian Empire for 208 years; the Grecian Empire for 185 years, and the Roman Empire stood for more than 500 years.
vi. Liberal commentators do not believe that the fourth kingdom is Rome, but they say it is Greece, and that the second and third kingdoms are Media and Persia respectively, instead of the Medo-Persian Empire as a whole. They interpret this way because they believe it was impossible for Daniel to predict the rise of these empires.
It broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold: This described a single, decisive event that shattered the image representing the glory of man’s rule on earth. Since the Church or the Gospel have not, in a single decisive event, shattered the reign of human kingdoms, this event is still in the future.
The kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile: This final world empire will be according to the nature of clay mixed with iron. It will have more the image of true strength than the substance of strength.
1182025118202511820251182025
I would encourage everyone to go to the commentary I linked in this study. There's a lot more commentary I didn't include here.
Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. Apparently, it was that kind of dream that nags you the next day. It must have been the kind of dream that wakes you up at midnight and won't let you get back to sleep. Then, sleepy from the lack of sleep, you are mentally stuck. That dream, whatever it was, is like being nagged by a jingle from a TV or radio commercial.... like "1-800-588-2300 Empire!". With that hopping around in your brain, you just can't function!
Nebuchadnezzar was exasperated. He was ready to have all the "wise" men in the kingdom executed because not only could they not imagine the dream that was nagging Nebuchadnezzar, they couldn't interpret it if they could imagine it.
Nebuchadnezzar had that kind of nightmare that just would not let loose. Daniel and his buddies prayed fervently and God told Daniel "The rest of the story". Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar what dream he had and what it meant.
Don't you just hate those commercials that say "It's your worst nightmare" or "I know what you're thinking"? I abhor them! How could anyone know what my weird mind is thinking? Why in the world would breaking down in front of my daughter's school be my worst nightmare? So far, my worst nightmare was being trapped in a phone booth, without a quarter, buck naked, without a clue where I am, without a clue who to call or what their phone number is now that we're all mobile, and people pounding on the door for me to get out and let them have a call. It was a Chantix dream... lol.
In all the Bible Studies I have attended over these 74 years, they got hung up on the statue. But the interpretation falls flat because, like Nebuchadnezzar, we don't have a clue what God is really telling us.According to the commentary, it's the clay and iron feet that we are a part of. The gold, silver, bronze and iron are, according to the commentary, four empires that will take over before Christ returns.
According to the commentary, the iron of the legs is combined with clay when it gets to the feet. The iron and clay, according to the commentary, represent how divided the humans all over the globe will be before Christ returns. Is your church having issue with the division concerning Hamas in Gaza, and Israel?
Now look at the "Rock". It's a "Rock" cut out of the mountain side... but not by human hands, like the four presidents carved into the mountain. This "Rock" is just hewn from the mountain by extraordinary forces [God]. The "Rock" hits the feet of the statue and it causes the statue to fall apart, to divide, to drop. Division at the foundation causes the whole human race to fall on its face.
Humans think their poop is the only poop that doesn't stink. That would be fine for the world if they were the only humans who thought their poop didn't stink. The problem is there are divisions everywhere. In the church, Catholics and Protestants fight over the gospel, not to mention the dunkers and the sprinklers. In the country, there are the super-rich, paying the almost as rich, to run the group of rich, to overpower the enslaved poor. Strong nations like Russia are beating up on weaker countries like Ukraine. Strong nations like the US and China are fighting over islands in the vast ocean, claiming their "strategic" value. One good tsunami could wash the islands away but the iron and the clay are busting apart.
A "Rock" is going to come along and shatter the foundation of human existence.
We'll see it coming... and we won't be able to stop it.... like a meteor with a bright tail.... The rock is going to knock the foundation out from under all those superior "empires" and supplant them.
Jesus is the "Rock" that will take down the statue of human empires.
God is the mountain that Jesus was hewn from. Jesus is the "Rock". We are the iron and clay waiting to be separated like chaff and grain at the threshing room, or sheep and goats in the pasture.
Jesus is the Son of God... or as Daniel saw Him in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Jesus is the "Rock" that takes down all the governments globally.
Believers and Un-Believers are like iron and clay. Believers, like iron, will survive the return of the "Rock". Un-Believers, like clay, will shatter.
Jesus is the "Rock" that will shatter the human foundation.
I think that's what the "statue" and the "Rock" mean in this interpretation.
Then again, I'm only interpreting the interpretation. I'm only an old woman with an online Bible and some online commentary. I don't have a clue.
What's your interpretation?
