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Daniel Segment 2

All scripture is from the King James Version unless otherwise noted. Before beginning this study, I suggest you pray and ask God to guide you through this study. I also suggest that you do you own study of this material in order to ensure its accuracy.
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n the last segment we said the Arioch, the king's chief executioner, was quite familiar with Daniel. Since he did not want to have to execute his friend, he quickly got him to the king. I am sure he also feared for his own life if he took too long to carry out the king's decree of death to all wise men. He made sure that the king knew it was Daniel and not one of his own wise men.

Belteshazzar means "favored of bel", who was the creating God of the Babylonians and also known as Marduk. Perhaps the king's greeting went like this, "Are you able, o Favored of Bel, to tell me about my dream?" In other words, "has Bel favored you with an interpretation?" Daniel had to make known to the king that it was the LORD who gave the interpretation.

In other words, "No one can tell the secret, not the wise men, the astrologers, magicians, or soothsayers can know the secret. Only God in Heaven can know and reveal it to men." The dream is about the "latter days", which means the future. The Hebrew word is 'achariyth (Strong's 319 & 320), which means the future days. Normally when used by the prophets this refers to the time of Messiah and the time of the last days of the age—that great and terrible day of the LORD. This prophecy concerns events before and after the advent of Messiah.

Daniel tells us the significance of the king's dream. It is to tell the future. God, The Divine Revelator, the revealer of secrets, made these things known to the king (and Daniel, and us through this scripture).

Let us look specifically at this phrase: "but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king". Note that the word "their" is in Italics. It is not in the original. The translator of this passage may have understood Daniel to be saying that for the sakes of all the wise men (their sakes), who were to be killed, this interpretation was given. So the translator clarified the passage by adding the pronoun their. Unfortunately this is simply not the case. The italicized pronoun alters the original meaning of the text. The passage should read like this: "But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for wisdom that I have more than any living man, but in order that the meaning might be made known to the king, and that you might know the thoughts of your heart." Green's Literal Translation reads, "But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living man, but so that the meaning might be made known to the king, and that you might know the thoughts of your heart." Young's Literal Translation puts it this way: "As to me--not for any wisdom that is in me above any living hath this secret been revealed to me; but for the intent that the interpretation to the king they make known, and the thoughts of thy heart thou dost know." You see the wise men do not come into play here. This was not revealed for their sakes, but for the king's sake. And since it is scripture, it was revealed for our sakes as well.

Nebuchadnezzar did not even remember the particulars of the dream, only that it was important. Daniel tells him what the dream was about. No man can know what is in the thoughts of another. O we can guess their thoughts, but we cannot know them. If we cannot know their thoughts, we certainly cannot know their dreams. So this necessarily had to come as a revelation from God.

The king saw a large statue of a man. It was shining brightly and standing on its feet. It was a formidable and frightening sight. That is why it woke the king from his sleep. But, as we do when we dream, the king could not remember the exact nature of the dream, only that it was imposing and frightening.

The first use of the term great means large or huge. But the second usage is translated from a different word. This word is rab (7229), as in rabbi, and it means chief or captain. Not only was this a huge figure, but it was a kingly figure as well. It was great in size, and it was great in stature. So this was the image of a king that symbolized monarchies or kingdoms.

The interpretation of these parts is given in succeeding verses. Here the statue is simply described, so the king and we should know the dream. Gold and silver are self-explanatory, but the brass is a bit more difficult. It could be brass, copper or bronze, but it was shiny brass, copper, or bronze. Here is a great shining figure of three different shiny metals decreasing in worth from head to foot.

It is not likely that these parts were shiny because iron rusts and will not maintain a shine without a coating of some sort. But the iron may have been shiny. You can shine iron and it will remain shiny for a short while. But after a few hours it rusts. Clay can shine when it is glazed and fired in a kiln, but the feet of clay probably did not shine. But the overall effect was one of great brightness shining in the bright sun, the torso, arms, and head shone, while the legs and feet may have been dull.

This is interesting. The imagery is reminiscent of Hebrews 9:11: "But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;" This was speaking of God's Kingdom. See also Matthew 26:61, Mark 14:58, and John 2:18-22. In those verses Jesus was talking about his body that would be killed and raised three days later. In Colossians 2:11, Paul talks of the circumcision without hands. He refers to the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit. In the dream we have a stone that seems to cut itself out and float over to the statue and slam down against the feet and break them.

Then there is the image of gold, silver, brass, and iron breaking into bits like glass and the shards becoming like chaff, that is light and airy, and being blown away by the wind. Then the stone grows in size until it covers the entire earth. That was a scary sight!

Daniel told the king what the other wise men could not know and now he was going to give the interpretation to the king. He used "we" because he and his three companions prayed over the matter and God answered.

The kingdoms represented by this great statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, are named kingdoms that are succeeded by other named kingdoms. But all of these kingdoms symbolized by the statue are really just the kingdom of man in its several stages throughout history. We must note that in Genesis 10:9-10, the Bible tells us that Nimrod founded this kingdom: "He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD. {10} And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar." All of these areas became the Babylonian kingdom and this kingdom conquered the entire known world. It was a world kingdom; the Kingdom of Man. Nimrod rebelled against God when he established Babel. His name means rebel. It was Nimrod's Babel that built the great Tower of Babel. Babylon was the first installment in the Kingdom of Man.

Nebuchadnezzar needed to understand that even though he was a king of kings; very powerful; presiding over many nations and kingdoms, everything he had was from God. God gave him all that he had. Gold was the most precious metal of its day. Today there are metals that are worth more than gold, such as platinum, uranium, etc., but none are sought after as gold is and no economy is based on the price of platinum. Our nation once used gold as the basis for its economy. Many nations have used gold as the standard of their economies. Gold is the prime metal in the world and always has been. Because of its scarcity, it is worth has always been high. It is the king of all precious metals as it was in Nebuchadnezzar's day. Since gold was and is the king of precious metals, in Nebuchadnezzar's dream it symbolizes the most important world empire. Gold also signifies the wealth of Babylon, which was a fabulously wealthy civilization; its wealth was famous. Babylon was the first of the five empires in the dream and that is signified the golden head.

The second kingdom, represented by the silver thorax, was Medo-Persia. This is confirmed in Daniel 8:20. Babylon was conquered by Medo-Persia in the reign of Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar's son (or perhaps his grandson). The emblem of the Medes and Persians was a breast and two arms of silver representing the union between the Medes and Persians. Note that this is exactly what Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, a breast and arms of silver. They captured Babylon around 533 BC.

The next kingdom is one of brass. As we discovered earlier, the word rendered brass is nechash (5174), and it literally means copper. But as various copper alloys were discovered or introduced, the same word was used to describe them. So the KJV users always rendered nechash as brass, even when it was copper or bronze. The Hebrews were totally unaware of brass until Roman times when the Romans introduced it to Israel. There was no Hebrew knowledge of brass during Daniel's time so that means that the belly and thighs of the statue could not have been made of brass. They were either copper or bronze. Bronze had been around since 2000 BC, but the Greeks learned to temper it and make it very hard. Copper is not a very hard metal. It is easily shaped, but will not withstand abuse without deforming or even breaking. It cannot stand up to a thrust by a sword or spear and would not stop arrows. It was a very poor choice of metal for armor.

But bronze, a copper alloy made with at least 10% tin, was an excellent choice for armor. It melts at a lower temperature than copper and can be tempered and made hard enough to make excellent armor. The first armies to use tempered bronze armor were the Greeks under Alexander, that is, the Macedonians. The Greeks easily defeated the Medo-Persians even though their soldiers were evenly matched in all other areas, such as weapons, training, and ability. A small group of Greeks with bronze armor could easily defeat a much larger force of Persians without the armor, and they did. They defeated the Medo-Persian Empire a conquered most of the world including Israel.

If you look at an ancient piece of Greek bronze armor, which consists of a cuirass, you will note that it covers the torso area from the upper thighs up to the chest. The most protected parts of the body were the lower chest (heart area) and the belly. The thighs and legs were protected by separate pieces of bronze armor. Later the leg armor was removed. The arms and legs were not protected by the armor, but this gave excellent mobility to the soldier. Notice what the scripture said about the brass portion of the statue: " his belly and his thighs [were] of brass". This is an exact description of a Greek soldier in bronze armor. So this part of the statue indicated the Greeks under Alexander the Great. This is confirmed in Daniel 8:21. Alexander conquered most of the known world before his premature death. His kingdom was then divided among his generals in a loose confederation. (During this time the Israelites rebelled and won a victory over Antiochus Epiphanes that was short lived because then the Romans came. This is prophesied in a later chapter of Daniel). The Macedonian Empire remained in power until the Romans conquered them.

The next empire to rule was the Roman Empire. The Romans were never actually defeated—they just imploded. The Roman Empire still exists today as the Roman Catholic Church, the capital of which is the Vatican. More on this later.

The Iron Age is considered to have started as early as 800 BC but was really not in full force until c. 500 BC and lasted until nearly 1000 AD in some places. The Iron Age corresponds with the Roman Empire. Rome became a republic around 500 BC, an empire in the first century BC, and declined c. 400 AD. The Roman Empire was The Iron Age Empire. They were the first to deploy iron and steel in their weapons and armor. Before Rome, the other empires, Babylon, Persia, and Greece did not have the technology to produce steel. Rome did. Roman armor used polished iron helmets, a polished steel cuirass made of steel strips riveted together, and they made use of steel chain mail that covered them from head to foot. Their weapons consisted of, among other things, a short steel thrusting sword, and an iron headed spear used to pierce the enemy's armor, shields and helmet. The Roman Empire does qualify as an empire of iron because she made great use of the Iron Age in both military and civilian items. She equipped her military with iron and steel armor and weapons, and traded iron and steel commodities with her partners. The fourth empire was Rome. Rome broke into pieces all of the rivals in the world and bruised them and conquered them, assimilating them into the Roman Empire. Rome subdued all her enemies.

But, as with the two arms of silver, which represented an alliance of the Medians and Persians, it would seem that the two legs of iron might also have represented two allied empires. Of course the Roman Empire split into two parts, the Eastern portion was ruled from Byzantium, hence its moniker, the Byzantine Empire, while the West was ruled from Rome. This occurred in the Fourth Century AD, around 395.

There are those who, with good reason, say that the two legs of iron represented the two most powerful of the four of Alexander's Generals, Ptolemy Lagidae, and Seleucus Nicator (the Ptolemies and Seleucids). Lagidae (the Ptolemies) was the king of the south (Daniel 11:5) and Seleucus (the Seleucids) the king of the north (Daniel 11:6). Their kingdoms, Egypt, and Syria, flourished during the formative years of the Roman Republic. But it must be noted that those two kingdoms, though powerful, did not control the entire world as did Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece. Therefore they could not have been what was meant by the dream. Rome, which did rule the entire world, absorbed these two kingdoms, giving added impetus to the rationale that Rome was represented by the legs of iron. We will discuss these two kingdoms in more detail when we get to Daniel Chapter 11.

Let us discus the terms used by the KJV translators here. "Broken" would be better translated fragile or brittle. The NIV and NRSV and others render it brittle. Several render it fragile; a few render it weak. There will be strong states and weak states in this kingdom. The Hebrew word for clay is chacaph (2635), meaning clay made from various types of earth mixed with water to make bricks, pottery, etc. Potter's clay was mixed for making pottery. The clay was moist or miry. When heated in a kiln it became hard and durable but brittle. The feet here are part iron and part clay (v. 33) or iron mixed with clay or iron mixed with miry clay in this verse.

The KJV translators (and many others) evidently did not know how to render the Hebrew word tiyn (2917). It certainly does not mean miry. It means clay. (Young incorrectly calls it mud or mire). So the actual phrase in English would be clay clay. Since that did not make sense, they chose to use miry clay. But that gives the appearance of moist clay on a turntable that is ready to be molded by the potter's. This clay is molded, along with the iron, into feet. The NIV gets around the problem by calling it baked clay, which is more in keeping with the brittle clay in the feet. The NKJV calls it ceramic clay, which is much more likely. In fact, it has been discovered that the word tiyn is also used to describe ceramic potsherds (See Brown-Driver-Briggs). Since there are several different types of clay used in such arts as brick making, toy making, pottery, and making clay tablets for writing. Daniel wanted to make sure that we know that this is the same type of clay used to make ceramic pots for cooking, eating, and storage. It is a durable product but brittle. Clay used in brick making, for example, is more dense and not as brittle. It is easier to break pottery than bricks.

The picture is that the feet are iron in some spots and clay in others. They are randomly placed. In a smelter, iron cannot be mixed with clay. When worked by a smith, iron will not stick to clay. Daniel tells us that this represents a divided kingdom, part of which is stronger and part of which is weaker. In the next verse, Daniel gives us the details of how these divisions happened.

There are two views on this subject. The one builds upon the view that the two legs of iron are the two kingdoms of the Ptolemies and Seleucids, Egypt and Syria or the southern and northern kingdoms. These were founded by the two stronger of Alexander's generals and continued until Rome absorbed them into her own. Briefly, the leaders of these two kingdoms attempted to ally with one another and their royal families intermarried one another in order to secure alliances. These failed. We will get more into these intrigues when we study Chapter 11. These marriages and failed alliances are what is meant by mingling themselves with the seed of men and not cleaving together. According to some, this was the prevailing view before Rome became a world empire. When the Romans came, say these commentators, the view was changed to say the legs of iron referred to Rome as discussed below. It is difficult to accept this concept for this reason: the end of this kingdom, the fourth world empire in history, is immediately followed by the reign of Christ or at least the Christian era (as some commentators state). Rome devoured the Ptolemy and Seluecid kingdoms before the Christian era. They are gone and were gone before the birth of Christ. If, as I believe, the fourth empire ends with the reign of Christ as King of kings, then that is yet future and the only world empire left is the vestiges of what was once Rome. We will discuss the Roman Empire in modern times below.

The other view says that this is the slow break up of Rome. It degenerated into the Eastern and Western Empires and the Western Empire became the Western European nations of today, who are at this present time involved in an alliance of strong and weak members, the European Union.

We have already seen how Rome fits into the idea of legs of iron; now let us look at the feet or iron and clay. Rome was divided into east and west. The Eastern (Byzantine) Empire basically covered the areas east of the Aegean Sea, south of the Danube, and west of the Indus River (though in later times it covered portions of the Western Empire). It was relatively peaceful until the Ottoman Empire overtook it in the Fifteenth Century AD. There were continuing attacks and harassment buy the Mongols, but the Byzantine Empire was relatively safe until the Ottomans came and breached the walls of Constantinople (formerly Byzantium). The Ottomans renamed the city Istanbul and that remains the name until today. (It is interesting to note that Byzantium was one of several cities situated upon seven hills). One of the iron legs represents this eastern division of the empire. One could say that the eastern portion of the Roman Empire still survives in the Islamic nations or even in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The other leg, then, must represent the western half of the Roman Empire under Rome. Western Rome basically included all of Western Europe, but with only a portion of the British Isles under their control. In Britain, they controlled only England north to Hadrian's wall. They did not control Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, or Ireland. The Roman Empire proper fell to the Germans in the Fifth Century AD. But the states under its control remained intact as the Western European countries. Yes, borders have changed and a few states have come and gone over the centuries, but today's Western Europe is much the same as it was at the fall of Rome.

The Holy Roman Empire was established by Charlemagne. He conquered much of Western Europe and centralized it under German rule. The empire lasted from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Centuries. It officially ended in 1806. This leads us to the role of the Vatican in the Roman Empire. Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Leo III on Christmas day 800 AD. The Holy Roman Empire continued the old Roman Empire. It considered itself to be the restoration and continuation of the Roman Empire. It was ruled by Charlemagne from France but ended with his death in 925. It was revived by Pope John XII and Otto I of Germany in 962 AD. In that day is was simply called the Roman Empire. The word "holy" was added in the twelfth century. It lasted until 1806. So we have the Roman Empire extended from its official fall in the fifth century to the nineteenth century.

The Vatican is a sovereign state, a city-state, a sovereign country that is a member of the United Nations. In addition to being a part of the UN, it had diplomatic relations with a host of countries worldwide, exchanging ambassadors with them. There is a Vatican Embassy in the United States at 3339 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington DC. When the Pope visits a country, he is given the status of a head of state, and is received with the honors due a head of state. Through the Vatican, one could say that the Roman Empire still exists. It exists metaphysically if not materially. The Holy Roman Empire, or the Roman Empire until the twelfth century, though officially disbanded in the early eighteen hundreds, still exists in the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church. It bonds together many nations in Roman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church holds many nations together in spirit.

The Roman Empire still exists in the countries of Europe and Asia that were a part of the Official Empire in its day. It was truly the last worldwide empire, the fourth empire of Nebuchadnezzar's statue. While other empires have come and gone, the Roman Empire has stayed intact through alliances, the Holy Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican, Western Europe, and the remnants of the Eastern Empire in the Islamic nations.

The Roman Empire was unified in the early days. It was then divided into the Eastern and Western empires. These empires were never a real unit. They were kept together artificially by the Pax Romana or the Roman Peace. To maintain this "peace" required a large and strong military with capable leaders and good logistics. The army was strong and well commanded. Soldiers and sailors had regular pay, regular meals, uniforms, a sandal allowance, and retirement benefits. Logistically, the excellent Roman roads supplied the army. But there was constant unrest by captured peoples. They were kept under control by the army. As the problems of the empire grew, so did the unrest of the peoples.

What is the meaning of the statement "they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another "? It is basically what was just stated about the Pax Romana. They conquered nations and then forced them to assimilate under threat of violence from the army. They tried to cause the "seed of man," that is the peoples of the nations they conquered, to live together as "Romans". But the peoples never really were spiritually assimilated into Rome. Instead, they were forced to accept Roman culture. As soon as the central authority was lost, these peoples did not cleave one to another. They separated into their previous distinctions.

Today we still have alliances. We have NATO, the European Union, the United Nations, the G7 /G8, etc. There have been plenty more of such alliances throughout the ages. Of the nations involved in these alliances, some are weaker and some are stronger. These alliances also fulfill the statement "the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken [or weak]." Today's alliances are loose and artificially held together. The Western Nations are individual states with common ties but they do not cleave together. These alliances and nations along with the forced assimilation of the peoples into the Roman Empire were represented by the feet and toes of iron mixed with clay.

As stated in the last few paragraphs, the days of these kings can easily be seen to continue until today. Kings can compare with rulers, dictators, prime ministers, presidents, premiers, etc. The leaders of nations can be equated to this word, kings. Just as a king ascends to the throne, these leaders have ascended to power in their own dominions.

Now there are those who say that this kingdom set up by God is the coming of Christ, the Christian era, or the church age. Certainly the church will stand forever—it is Christ's brethren and because of Christ it will stand forever. The problem with this view is that the church has not and will not break up the world empires. To take the case that the church has broken up kingdoms and empires is to give power it does not have. It is Christ Himself that will "rule them with a rod of iron", and it is Christ who will smite the nations with the sharp sword that proceeds out of His mouth (see Revelation 19:15). This final kingdom is that of Christ when He returns with His church (Revelation 19):

The kingdoms of this world still stand. The vestiges of the fourth world empire are still extant in the countries of Europe and Asia that were a part of the Official empire in its day. The Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church still retain much of the old Roman Empire. The Islamic states that were a part of the Byzantine Empire also retain what was once the Roman Empire. There is a day coming when a global empire uniting all of the vestiges of the Roman Empire, and indeed the whole world, will come into existence. It is that global empire or beast spoken of in Revelation 13 that will be subdued by the coming of the Christ when he sets up His Kingdom at the end of the age. I do not hold to the theory, taught by some, that the Common Market, which is the European Union today, is the "kingdom of the Antichrist" that will rule the world when Christ returns. That concept teaches that the E.U. is the revived Roman Empire. That is not what I am stating here. It is Christ and not the church that will "break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and [His Kingdom] shall stand for ever."

Jesus Christ is referred to as the Stone the Builders Rejected, the Chief Cornerstone, a Stone of Stumbling, the Rock, the Rock of Our Salvation, the Rock of My Strength, a Tried Stone, the Stone of Israel, etc. This Stone is the final kingdom, which is the Kingdom of. Jesus Christ. Some say this stone is the church. I reject that for reasons already stated.

Daniel said that since this interpretation came from God Himself that it is sure. This interpretation is accurate and true, and it will surely happen as prophesied. In fact, much of it has already occurred. Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and official Rome have already passed. All that waits is for Christ to come and set up his Kingdom.

This was an act of great devotion. I am sure that Daniel did not allow this to go on. He was a Man of God and would never allow anyone to worship him. The king commanded religious rites to be performed before Daniel and I am sure he disallowed that as well. In fact that seems to be what the next verse is about.

Though it is not stated, it is implied that Daniel made a statement to the effect hat it was the LORD God that gave him the interpretation and God alone should be worshipped. This seems to be a reply to such a statement by Daniel. The king was very impressed with the LORD. That is why he was given this dream in the first place, to show him who was really God.

Daniel and his three companions were now very high up in the government of Nebuchadnezar. They would remain so even under the Medes and Persians.

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