Daniel Interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream, part 2 (Daniel 2:31-35)

Nebuchadnezzar has had a dream that troubled him.  As all leaders do, he had probably been thinking about the future.  What was next for his kingdom?  Would it last?  What would be his legacy?  God has given him a dream that, unknown to him at the moment, did have to do with his future.  The problem was, none of his psychic cabinet could either tell him what the dream was, nor could they interpret it.  They were, in fact, frauds, and Nebuchadnezzar conceived of a plan to prove it.

One man, however, could tell the king his dream AND interpret it, not because he was all-knowing and all-wise, but because he served the God who did know the future, because He had planned it all.  And know the Most High God is showing Nebuchadnezzar the plan for the “times of the Gentiles,” as Jesus called them (Luke 21:24).

So we pick up our study of the book of Daniel in chapter 2, verse 31.  In explaining the dream (2:31-35), Daniel began by recounting the substance of the dream (2:31-36).

“You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening.  The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.  As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.  Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found.  But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.  “This was the dream.  Now we will tell the king its interpretation.

“To his astonishment, Nebuchadnezzar recognized the accuracy of every detail of Daniel’s description.  He must have been leaning forward to hear the explanation from what he now knew to be a spokesman from God” (Gleason Archer Jr., Daniel in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, p. 45).

So, in his dream the king had seen a colossal image in human form.  It was terrible to behold because of its size and because of its glowing brightness, made almost entirely of gleaming metals.

Charles Feinberg says, “”The figure of a man was employed here because God wished to make known what would transpire during man’s day, the ages in which mortal man ruled the earth.  Here, in one panoramic sweep, the whole history of human civilization is spread before us, from the days of Nebuchadnezzar to the end of time” (Daniel: The Kingdom of the Lord, p. 35).

God shows to Nebuchadnezzar that he has a plan for those outside the nation of Israel, to use them as a means to draw His own people back to Himself.  God also shows Israel that He has not forgotten them, for the final kingdom (the kingdom of Jesus Christ) will have the final, and the eternal, victory.

God had two objectives in communicating this revelation of future kingdoms.  First, he wanted to clearly show that every earthly kingdom is temporary and that only His kingdom will stand eternally.  All of those who link their futures and livelihood to the world will be disappointed.  Just as Babylon the Great will fall in the end-times (Revelation 18), so will all kingdoms of the world.

1 John 2:15-17 – Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Second, God wanted to show His people Israel that there was hope for the future.  When Jesus returns and defeats the armies of the Antichrist, then He will establish a kingdom and sit on David’s throne in Jerusalem.  Israel will become the center of the earth and every nation will come to worship God there.

God had chosen Israel to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6), yet God’s chosen nation had failed at its calling.  Now God will use the Babylonians and the succeeding empires to accomplish His purpose.

The head was fine gold, the breast and arms were of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, its legs were of iron, and its feet were a combination of iron and clay.  The king was contemplating this image in wonder and awe when suddenly he saw a huge stone, cut without hands, descend from the sky.  It smote the image and it toppled in broken pieces then blew away.  The stone became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

Daniel had done what the professional psychics could not do.  And before the king could say anything, Daniel launched into the interpretation of that dream.

But before we get into that, let’s observe several facts about the image itself.

First, the vision was given to a Gentile king, the first of many such kings who would hold the Jews in bondage and Jerusalem under their feet.  With Nebuchadnezzar began the “times of the Gentiles” concerning God’s people in exile under the domination of various Gentile empires.

When we look over the range of biblical history and God’s purposes we find two significant time periods.

“When God raised up Abraham and promised him that through him and his seed all nations would be blessed (Gen. 12:1-3), He entrusted to him and his descendants two things: secular and spiritual supremacy over all people.  If Israel, as a nation, had been true to its calling, both goals would have been realized.  One day, in the sovereign purpose of God, both of them will be realized; during the millennial reign of Christ, God’s original purpose will be brought to full flower and fruit by the Lord Jesus from Jerusalem, and all of the dynamics of secular ad spiritual power will be concentrated in his hands” (John Phillips, Exploring the Book of Daniel, p. 51).

“Israel failed.  The long history of the nation of Israel in the Promised Land was a record of rebellion, idolatry, and apostasy.  At length, God terminated abruptly Israel’s secular supremacy.  He handed Jerusalem, which was to have been the world’s capital, to a Gentile world power, Babylon.  The temple, which was to have been a house of prayer for all nations, He consigned to the flames.  Thus began the first of the two periods of prophetic significance, the ‘times of the Gentiles.’  During this period, world empires and the city of Jerusalem are to remain solidly in Gentile hands.  For ‘Jerusalem,’ Jesus said, ‘shall be trodden down to the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled’ (Luke 21:24)” (John Phillips, Exploring the Book of Daniel, p 51).

“In 1967, the Jews regained possession of Jerusalem and have made it the capital of the reborn state of Israel.  They have vowed that they will never surrender it.  This has led to some foolish statements that the ‘times of the Gentiles’ will terminate with the coming, career, and collapse of the Antichrist.  For at least three and a half years, he will hold Jerusalem in bondage and will be ravishing the city at the very moment when Christ’s feet touch upon the Mount of Olives” (John Phillips, Exploring the Book of Daniel, p. 51).

So, during the “times of the Gentiles,” Israel’s secular power of the nations will be forfeited.

An equally important period in God’s dealings with the nation of Israel is that spoken of as “the fulness of the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:25-27).  During this period, spiritual ascendancy also is no longer in Hebrew hands but in Gentile (or the church’s) hands.  For two thousand years, from Abraham to Pentecost, whatever God had to say, He said in Hebrew and through a Jew.  After Pentecost, whatever God had to say, He said in Greek….When the Jews murdered their Messiah, spiritual supremacy was torn from the Jews, just as centuries earlier He had torn away their secular supremacy, and He gave that spiritual ascendancy to the church.

Both of these periods, “the times of the Gentiles” and the “fullness of the Gentiles” will end.  The “fullness of the Gentiles” will end with the rapture of the church.  During the tribulation, God will once again speak to the world primarily through Jews (Rev. 11, 7).  The “times of the Gentiles” will end with the return of Christ to a world gone mad.  The “times of the Gentiles” will end with the return of Christ to set up His millennial kingdom on this planet, centered at Jerusalem.

Thomas Constable notes these features of the image:

Several features of this image are noteworthy:  First, the head is the only member of the body made of only one metal.  All the other parts had more than one substance, with the exception of the arms.  Specifically, the upper torso was silver but bronze lower down.  The same was true of the legs and feet.

Second, there is a consistently decreasing value of the substances beginning at the top and proceeding to the bottom of the image.  Gold is the most precious.

In his book on Daniel, John F. Walvoord makes this observation:

“The descending scale of value of the four metals suggests the degeneration of the human race through the ages….This concept contradicts the evolutionist’s interpretations of human history.  Instead of man beginning in the dust and consummating in fine gold, God reveals man in the times of the Gentiles to begin with fine gold and end in dust” (Daniel: The Key to Prophetic Revelation, p. 66).

However, while the parts of the image decrease in value, they increase in strength as we move from kingdom to kingdom.  Of course, this is a terrible combination—to decrease in morality while increasing in strength.

Third, the image was top-heavy.  The specific gravity of gold is about 19.3, silver about 10.51, brass about 8.5, iron at 7.6 and clay at 1.9.  So from the first, the image is doomed to topple, and this would be the case in the history of these kingdoms.  Each successive part of the body, as we move downward, would be the conqueror of the previous kingdom.

John Phillips comments on this, saying, “…although God ordained and allowed Gentile world empires to wax and wane and to rule and dominate the earth, He never intended this innovation, made necessary by Israel’s sins, to be permanent” (John Phillips, Exploring the Book of Daniel, p. 53).  The “times of the Gentiles” would eventually come to an end at the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Fourth, the substances progress from the softest to the hardest, top to bottom.  The feet, however, are a non-adhering combination of very hard and hard but fragile materials.  The clay in view may have been baked clay that the Babylonians used as tiles in construction projects.

Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream Statue
Head	Gold	Valuable	Soft	Self-contained unit	Heavy
Chest and arms	Silver	Less valuable	Harder	1 unit & 2 parts	Lighter
Abdomen	Bronze	Even less valuable	Even harder	1 unit & 2 different parts	Even lighter
Lower legs	Iron	Still less valuable	Still harder	2 parts	Still lighter
Feet and toes	Iron & clay	Least valuable	Very hard and very soft	2 parts & 10 segments	Lightest

 

Fifth, as we will see in Daniel’s interpretation, the focus concentrates on the head and the feet, the beginning and ending of Gentile rule.  The in-between stages were passed over in silence and became the subject of later visions.

The disturbing part of this dream is what happened to this glorious image.  It was smashed to smithereens by a rock!

34 As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

Without a doubt this is the climax of the vision.  After the stone strikes the image, the image is demolished and the stone expands into a mountain, eventually filling the whole earth.  “The composite statue was then reduced to powder by a huge stone (v. 34) and then the powder was blown away by the wind (v. 35)” (Gleason Archer, Jr. Daniel in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 7, p. 45).

Note that the rock/mountain was not a part of the four-part image. The Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Roman kingdoms were purely of this world, while the “stone was cut out by no human hand” (v. 34).  It was heavenly in origin and eternal in duration (v. 44), representing a fifth kingdom vastly superior to the previous four.

The shattering was so thorough that the pieces “became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found” (v. 35b)—an image of divine judgment (cf. Psa. 1:4).  No part of the image could endure the stone, which “became a great mountain and filled the whole earth” (Dan. 2:35c).  This worldwide dominion was something ascribed to no other metal or body part—the metals were all vulnerable, but the stone was invincible.

With the words “This was the dream,” Daniel signaled that the time had now come for the interpretation.  Since the king had not questioned any detail of the retelling, Daniel had succeeded in part one of his task, doing more than any of the king’s advisors could do.

The interpretation of the image, which we will finish next week, is given in vv. 37-45.

36 “This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. 37 You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, 38 and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all—you are the head of gold. 39 Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40 And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. 41 And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. 43 As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage,[c] but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. 44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”

The interpretation of the dream revolves around three factors: initial domination, then deterioration and ultimately disintegration of each of these kingdoms.  “The dream and the interpretation given to Daniel were actually quite simple, at least if we focus our attention on its central message, and yet at the same time incredibly profound” (Iain Duguid, Daniel in Reformed Expository Commentary, p. 36).