Chapter 4: The Interpretation

In Dan. 2:31-33 the prophet told the king,

³¹ You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome. ³² The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze [nekhash, “copper”] , ³³ its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

Take note that there were not four, but five kingdoms that were to arise, each part of this great statue, or image. The fourth and fifth kingdoms were certainly connected by their common “iron” quality, but the “feet” of this image are as distinct from the “legs” as the thighs are from the legs. Whereas the legs are pure iron, the feet are a combination of iron and clay.

These five are listed again in Dan. 2:35 and in verse 45, where the “feet” are described only as “clay,” omitting any mention of “iron.”

Also take note that the specific gravity of the metals decreases from top to bottom, making the statue top heavy.

Gold = 19.32

Silver = 10.49

Copper = 8.93

Iron = 7.85

Clay = 1.9

The decreasing pattern tells us that neither brass nor bronze was meant to describe the third kingdom. Although it was common in those days to mix copper with another metal, this does not factor into the revelation. Copper + zinc = brass, while copper + tin = bronze. In those days tin was mined to produce bronze, and hence the NASB renders the term bronze.

The KJV translates it as brass, not understanding that zinc was not used in those days.

The specific gravity of bronze is 7.7, and brass is 8.4. The dilemma is that brass would fit between silver (10.49) and iron (7.85), but brass itself was not used in those days. On the other hand, bronze was known, but its specific gravity is only 7.7 and is therefore less than iron at 7.85.

For this reason, lacking any compelling reason to turn copper into an alloy, we should render nekhash as “copper,” whose specific gravity (8.93) fits perfectly within the boundaries of silver (10.49) and iron (7.85).

The Image Crushed by a Stone

Daniel 2:34, 35 continues, showing the fate of this statue,

³⁴ You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands [“severs itself, that is, not by hands,” CV], and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them. ³⁵ Then the iron, the clay, the bronze [copper], the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain [“a vast mountain range,” CV] and filled the whole earth.

In verse 34 (above), where, for the first time, Daniel speaks of the “stone,” there is a hidden feature which identifies the stone as the Messiah. If we begin with the second letter of the eighteenth word in verse 34, and count every 26^th letter thereafter, it spells “Messiah.” This is what is known as Equidistant Letter Spacing (ELS), and various books have been written in recent years about this technique.

Further, an ELS of 7 spells out “the house of David,” which, of course, is the family from whom the Messiah came.

Therefore, hidden in the text itself is the identity of the stone. It is primarily Jesus Christ Himself, and yet also carries the broader application of “the house of David.” In other words, it includes all who are of Christ’s household—that is, His body. These form the sixth kingdom in the king’s dream, the Stone Kingdom, of which Christ is the King and His body rules with Him on His throne.

This stone was not cut from a mountain by human hands, but “severs itself,” as the CV puts it. The statue itself is contrasted to the stone in its origin. The implication is that the statue is man-made and, indeed, it was the statue of a man. The stone, however, has a divine origin and is meant to convey a heavenly origin formed by the Messiah Himself.

The stone then grows until it fills the whole earth as a great mountain range. Mountains are kingdoms in biblical symbolism, as we see in Isaiah 2:3, “the mountain of the Lord.” A mountain range, then, is a Federation of Kingdom Nations, which is to be formed according to Rev. 11:15: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.”

As we see from history, each of these “metal” kingdoms are reckoned to be part of this statue by virtue of their possession of Jerusalem. The final kingdom, however, with its feet partially of iron and partially of clay, implies a partial control of Jerusalem. The clay kingdom, as the prophet describes in later chapters, was of two natures, having the iron of Rome but also the clay of the scattered tribes of Israel (Jer. 18:1-10). There is much more to it than that, of course, but we will study this in greater depth at the proper time.

In the end, the king’s dream in Daniel 2 must be supplemented by Daniel 7 and 8 in order to obtain the most complete picture of prophetic history, because there God gave the prophet himself further insights into the kingdoms of men that were to arise.

Daniel’s Introduction

Dan. 2:36, 37 begins, saying,

³⁶ This was the dream; now we shall tell its interpretation before the king. ³⁷ You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory; ³⁸ and 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.

It is most important that we understand that the kingdoms of men received the Divine Mandate from God Himself. They cannot be given credit for gaining power by their own strength. Daniel makes it clear from the outset that King Nebuchadnezzar himself had been authorized by the God of heaven to rule “wherever the sons of men dwell.”

This is consistent with Jer. 27:5, 6, where God says,

⁵ I have made the earth, the men and the beasts which are on the face of the earth by My great power and by My outstretched arm, and I will give it to the one who is pleasing in My sight. ⁶ And now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him.

God’s right to delegate authority was based upon His rights as the Creator of heaven and earth (Gen. 1:1). The Creator owns that which He creates, and this gives Him the rights of ownership, as stated in the law in Lev. 25:23, where God says, “the land is Mine.”

The Dominion Mandate to rule the earth was given to the man in Gen. 1:26, when God delegated His authority (while retaining His sovereignty). This Dominion Mandate, in later years, had fallen to Judah and specifically to the house of David. But because of the sins of the kings of Judah, God finally stripped them of this authority and gave it to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. Both Jeremiah and Daniel recognized this and submitted to Nebuchadnezzar as God’s “servant.”

Jeremiah himself received no revelation about five kingdoms. He was shown only the seventy years of the first kingdom (Jer. 25:11, 12). Daniel, however, was shown that Babylon was only the first of five kingdoms that were to arise. In other words, the captivity of Jerusalem would extend far beyond the seventy years of Babylonian rule. When Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians, the Dominion Mandate was to pass to the king of Persia, rather than reverting to the house of David.

From Persia, the Dominion Mandate was to pass to the king of the Grecian Empire, that is, to Alexander the Great and to his successors. From Greece, it would pass to Rome and then to the iron-and-clay kingdom of Papal Rome. This last kingdom is still in existence as of this writing.

Yet we find that Christ came long ago in the days of the Roman “legs of iron.” He was the Stone, but even He could not claim the Kingdom until the Dominion Mandate passed to Him. It would not pass to Him until the last kingdom of men had completed its time allotted to rule the earth.

Hence, in a parable Jesus described this situation perfectly in Luke 19:12,

¹² He said therefore, “A certain nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself, and then return.”

Jesus had to ascend to heaven, the “distant country,” until He received the Dominion Mandate. The people of His day were aware of how King Herod the Great had gone to Rome to obtain authorization from the Roman Emperor to receive his kingdom. In a similar manner, Jesus too went to heaven “to receive a kingdom for Himself.” Though He is obviously the rightful Heir to the throne of David, He had to wait until the fifth kingdom of men had run its course.

Meanwhile, however, as believers we may exercise a great deal of spiritual authority, but, like Jesus, we have been restrained by the times in which we live. Yet I believe we are even now at the end of the final kingdom of iron mixed with clay, and that the Dominion Mandate was transferred to the saints of the Most High on the eighth day of Tabernacles, October 16, 2014. The actual coronation of these “saints” occurred on another eighth day, that of the wave-sheaf offering on April 5, 2015.

This does not mean that all of the problems of the past will be resolved immediately. It simply means that the Dominion Mandate has been stripped from the kingdoms of men and has been given to those who have the right to hold it for the Age to come. The ruling in the divine court has been decreed, and now we are seeing the outworking of that decree. The fall of Mystery Babylon is in progress, and the overcomers are called to prepare their hearts and to learn the laws of God by which they may exercise their callings in accordance with the will of Christ.

The Dream Revealed

Dan. 2:31-33 says,

³¹ You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extra-ordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome. ³² The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, ³³ its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

The Babylonian king was used to such statues, or images. There were many gods, all depicted by statues. Perhaps that is why God chose this particular way of revealing the future to him. The statue represented the kingdoms of men as a whole, even as the images of their gods represented the imagination of the hearts of men.

Daniel 2:34, 35 continues,

³⁴ You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them. ³⁵ Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

The statue was made by men, but the stone was “cut out without hands,” that is, without human effort. The idea is to show the contrast between the kingdoms of men and the Kingdom of God. We see the same contrast with the construction of altars that are used to worship God. In Exodus 20:25 we read how altars were to be constructed:

²⁵ And if you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you wield your tool on it, you will profane it.

Altars were to be made of naturally-shaped stones—that is, stones that are shaped by God alone through His invisible works. Altars represent the hearts of men, and only God can shape their hearts by the inner work of the Holy Spirit. Men may change their behavior, but any time men attempt to change their own hearts, they only pollute them.

So also is it with kingdoms. The kingdoms of men are built and shaped by the hands of men, but the Kingdom of God is not dependent upon the hands of men. This is true about the Kingdom that is within our hearts as well as the outward Kingdom that is coming to claim all of God’s creation and thus fill the whole earth.

The Head of Gold

Dan. 2:36, 37 says,

³⁶ This was the dream; now we shall tell its interpretation before the king. ³⁷ You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory; ³⁸ and 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.

Just as Daniel refused to take credit for the revelation of the dream itself, so also did he make it clear that the king of Babylon could not take credit for the success of his revolt against Nineveh and the establishment of his kingdom. The only reason that he was successful was because “the God of heaven” gave him “the kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory.”

This is consistent with Jer. 27:6, where God told the Judahites that “I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, “My servant.” If the king of Assyria had known this (and believed the word of God), he might have submitted to Nebuchad-nezzar without a fight. But the carnal hearts of men, shaped by human hands, do not agree with God and do not submit to His word.

Nebuchadnezzar, representing the kingdom of Babylon, was the head of gold. Its value and splendor was greater than all of the succeeding kingdoms, and yet it was given the shortest amount of time to rule on earth. The city of Babylon was the golden city in a golden age. It was laid out in a perfect square and was surrounded by a stone wall that was 15 miles long on each side. The wall was 200-300 feet high and 87 feet thick, surrounded by a moat that was of equal capacity to the wall itself.

The city was built to last forever. But it was only a counterfeit of the New Jerusalem, for in Rev. 21:16 we read, “the city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width.” Babylon’s walls were of regular stone; the New Jerusalem’s walls are of jasper (Rev. 21:18). The smooth stone-paved streets of Babylon, all laid out in squares, could not compare with the transparent gold streets attributed to the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:21). In fact, the whole city of New Jerusalem is pictured as a “city of pure gold, like clear glass” (Rev. 21:18). Even Babylon could not find enough gold to match that of New Jerusalem.

Babylon’s gates were of bronze, but the New Jerusalem’s gates are each made of a single pearl (Rev. 21:21). Where could Babylon obtain such huge pearls that might compete with those of the New Jerusalem?

Whereas Babylon needed the sun to give it light, the New Jerusalem “has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.” (Rev. 21:23).

While Babylon was watered by the Euphrates River, the New Jerusalem was watered by the River of Life (Rev. 22:1). The songs sung in the New Jerusalem come from former captives that are set free, as we see in Isaiah 35:10,

¹⁰ And the ransomed of the Lord will return, and come with joyful shouting to Zion, with everlasting joy upon their heads. They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Babylon’s music was forced from the mouths of captives and slaves, as we read in Psalm 137:1-4,

¹ By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. ² Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps. ³ For there our captors demanded of us songs, and our tormentors mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” ⁴ How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

In Revelation 21 the New Jerusalem is pictured in natural terms that are meant to set forth a spiritual meaning. Nature itself is a reflection of spiritual truth, which is why nature itself may teach us of heavenly things (1 Cor. 11:14). Further, whenever men attempt to counterfeit heavenly things, they inadvertently testify that there is something real that they are attempting to imitate by fleshly means.

So it was with Babylon. It was an attempt to counterfeit the New Jerusalem. In fact, the two natural cities—Jerusalem and Babylon—became prophetic cities representing the two competing kingdoms. Babylon was built by Nimrod; Jerusalem was built by Shem who ruled as the King-Priest (Melchizedek).

In the end, even Jerusalem itself (being fleshly) failed to manifest the glory of God. The prophets changed its name from the City of Peace to the Bloody City (Ezekiel 22:2; 24:6, 9; Nahum 3:1). Thus, the old cities became types and shadows of spiritual cities that would yet arise: Mystery Babylon and the New Jerusalem.

Babylon ruled just seventy years from 607-537 B.C.

The Arms and Belly

Dan. 2:39 continues,

³⁹ And after you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth.

The second kingdom was Medo-Persia, which was less glorious, though its dominion was larger than that of Babylon. Its metal was silver (Dan. 2:32). The third kingdom was of Greece, pictured as “its belly and its thighs of bronze.” Major-General H. N. Sargent tells us,

The Grecian Empire, we know, laid the foundation of European dominion and destroyed Asiatic supremacy. It was fitly represented by brass; for the Greeks were famous for the brazen armor (The Marvels of Bible Prophecy, p. 123).

Although Persia and Greece would have peculiar characteristics and strengths, none would ever match the glory of Babylon.

Medo-Persia took Babylon in 537 B.C. and was in turn conquered by Alexander the Great of Greece in 330 B.C.

The Legs of Iron and its Toes

Dan. 2:40 says,

⁴⁰ Then 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.

The legs of iron prophesied of the Roman Empire which received the Dominion Mandate when Rome took Jerusalem in 63 B.C.

⁴¹ And in 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. ⁴² And as 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.

Rome itself was as strong as iron, but yet the city fell in 476 A.D. It was replaced by the “feet” and “toes” that were a mixture of iron and clay. That is, it was a combination of Rome and something else that was pictured as “pottery.” There are many sides to this particular kingdom on the image, but politically speaking the “feet” prophesied of the Christian Kingdom beginning with Justinian the Great, who ruled from 527-565 A.D. in Constantinople (now Istanbul). His ambition was to regain the western half of the Roman Empire (including the city of Rome itself).

The “clay” of this kingdom prophesied of more than one dividing element in the Christian Empire. As we will see later, Justinian combined the secular of Rome with the spiritual of Christianity. He also combined Roman law with Church law. His empire was also divided religiously between the traditions of east and west, eventually separating “Orthodox” from “Roman” in the Great Schism of 1054 A.D.

As for control over Jerusalem was concerned, the city soon found itself alternately under the control of Muslims (clay) and Roman Christians (iron) for many centuries.

Later in the prophecies in Daniel 7 we are given more details, so we will discuss the iron and clay in greater detail at that time.