The Prophecies of Daniel - Part 2
After Daniel received revelation from God about the dream that King Nebuchadnezzar had, along with its interpretation, Daniel was rushed into the presence of King Nebuchadnezzar.
“Then Arioch hurriedly brought Daniel before the king and said this to him: ‘I have found a man among the exiles of Judah who can explain to the king the interpretation [of the dream].’ The king said to Daniel, whose [Babylonian] name was Belteshazzar, ‘Are you able to reveal to me the [content of the] dream which I have seen and its interpretation?’”—Daniel 2:25-26 (AMP)
Daniel uses this opportunity to give glory to God and to acknowledge Him as the source of true revelation. He also points out that those who do not serve the One True God are not able to receive this true revelation.
“Daniel answered the king and said, ‘Regarding the mystery about which the king has inquired, neither the wise men, enchanters, magicians, nor astrologers are able to answer the king, but there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets’”—Daniel 2:27-28 (AMP)
Then Daniel reveals that this dream speaks of things that will happen in the end-times. This is a prophetic dream.
“there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days (end of days).”—Daniel 2:28 (AMP)
Then Daniel explains to the king that God gave him this dream to answer the questions that the king had just been thinking about as he was lying in his bed.
“This was your dream and the vision [that appeared] in your mind while on your bed. As for you, O king, as you were lying on your bed thoughts came into your mind about what will take place in the future; and He who reveals secrets has shown you what will occur.”—Daniel 2:28-29 (AMP)
Daniel is very level-headed. He is a humble man. He is not under any illusions that he is something special just because God is using him at this time to interpret the king’s dream. In his humility, Daniel became the perfect messenger to deliver this message to the king.
“But as for me, this secret has not been revealed to me because my wisdom is greater than that of any other living man, but in order to make the interpretation known to the king, and so that you may understand [fully] the thoughts of your mind.”—Daniel 2:30 (AMP)
Sometimes, we may tend to become proud of ourselves and see ourselves as something special just because we have a special gift. We need to remember the words of Paul to the gifted Corinthians:
“Who do you think you are? Everything you have was given to you. So, if everything you have was given to you, why do you act as if you got it all by your own power?”—1 Corinthians 4:7 (ERV)
Daniel realized that any gifts that he had came from God. He did nothing to earn them. God could have just as easily used a donkey to speak to the king, as he did with Balaam.
The Dream
“You, O king, saw, and behold, [there was] a great image. This image which was mighty and of exceedingly great brightness stood before you, and the appearance of it was frightening and terrible.
“As for this image, its head was of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze,
“Its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay [the baked clay of the potter].
“As you looked, a Stone was cut out without human hands, which smote the image on its feet of iron and [baked] clay [of the potter] and broke them to pieces.
“Then the iron, the [baked] clay [of the potter], the bronze, the silver, and the gold were broken and crushed together 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. And the Stone that smote the image became a great mountain or rock and filled the whole earth.”—Daniel 2:31-35 (AMPC)
“This was the dream; now we will tell the king its interpretation.”—Daniel 2:36 (AMP)
The Interpretation
This dream is about world empires. In this dream, King Nebuchadnezzar is shown the four empires that will dominate the world until the reign of Jesus Christ at His second coming.
The Babylonian Empire (606-538 B.C.)
“You, O king, are the king of [earthly] kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory; and wherever the sons of men dwell, and the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, He has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You [king of Babylon] are the head of gold.”—Daniel 2:37-38 (AMP)
The Medo-Persian Empire (538-331 B.C.)
“After you will arise another kingdom (Medo-Persia) inferior to you”—Daniel 2:39 (AMP)
Daniel lived to see the Medo-Persian empire conquer and replace Babylon as the ruling empire of the world. We read this in Daniel 5:30:
“During that same night Belshazzar the [last] Chaldean king was slain [by troops of the invading army]. So Darius the Mede received the kingdom; he was about the age of sixty-two.” (AMP)
The Empire of Greece (331-63 B.C.)
“… and then a third kingdom of bronze (Greece under Alexander the Great), which will rule over all the earth.”—Daniel 2:39 (AMP)
The Roman Empire (63 B.C. until the return of Christ)
“Then a fourth kingdom (Rome) will be strong as iron, for iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things; and like iron which crushes things in pieces, it will break and crush all these [others]. And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but there will be in it some of the durability and strength of iron, just as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. As the [ten] toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so some of the kingdom will be strong, and another part of it will be brittle. And as you saw the iron mixed with common clay, so they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not merge [for such diverse things or ideologies cannot unite], even as iron does not mix with clay.”—Daniel 2:40-43 (AMP)
The image that Nebuchadnezzar saw was complete, continuous, and unbroken until he saw the stone strike the feet of the image. This seems to indicate that the last empire—the empire of Rome—will rule over the world until Jesus returns. But how is that possible?
That is a mystery that we will explore later in detail.
The Everlasting Kingdom of Jesus Christ
“In the days of those [final ten] kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will its sovereignty be left for another people; but it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it will stand forever. Just as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the great God has revealed to the king what will take place in the future; so the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”—Daniel 2:44-45 (AMP)
As we go through the book of Daniel and examine the other prophecies that he received, we will see that most of them expand on this dream of Nebuchadnezzar’s. Daniel’s vision of the four beasts in chapter 7, his vision of the ram, the goat, and the little horn in chapter 8, and the messages of the angel Gabriel in chapters 10 and 11 are all about these same world empires. We will see that Nebuchadnezzar’s dream lays the foundation for the rest of the prophecies that were later entrusted to Daniel.
