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Chapter 2:31-45 (ESV) - “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. 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, 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. Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 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. 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. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. 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, 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.”
Question to consider: What do you think is represented by the stone that becomes a mountain that fills the whole earth?
This vision given to Nebuchadnezzar will be a recurring theme throughout the prophecies concerning Daniel. Babylon was represented by the gold head of the statue, the inferior kingdom to come represented by silver was the Medo-Persian empire. The bronze kingdom which would rule over all the earth was Greece, and the iron kingdom mixed with clay was the Romans. The culmination of the vision was an everlasting kingdom built upon a stone that was cut from a heavenly mountain.
King David wrote about this stone several generations before this vision was given, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.” (Psalm 118:22-23). I encourage you to study this Psalm, for it is all about Christ who has become our salvation. The stone that struck down the kingdoms of this vision would become a mountain that fills the whole earth. This is the everlasting kingdom of Christ which King Jesus won for us on the cross. Luke’s gospel and subsequent book on the Acts of the Apostles described how this rock of Christ died, was buried, rose again and ascended to the right hand of the Father. The Apostles then established the church in His name, and it filled the earth.
Daniel’s description of Nebuchadnezzar was temporary, “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.” Now we recognize this truth about Jesus in the prayer that He gave His disciples, “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Part of me wishes Daniel would have asked Nebuchadnezzar directly why he made the demand that the one to interpret the dream must first tell him what it was. Personally, I believe that Nebuchadnezzar understood this dream to have prophetic significance. He perhaps thought that the entire statue represented his own kingdom, and that the different materials represented factions within it. He may have feared that this division would be the rock that destroyed the kingdom, and he therefore couldn’t know which of the various sorcerers or magicians to trust in its interpretation.
If he believed this message was a warning from one of the many gods represented in his kingdom, the only one he could trust would be a prophet who spoke for that god, and the sure test would be in revealing the contents of the dream. Nebuchadnezzar’s actions in the coming verses support this idea.
Dear heavenly Father, thank You for revealing to us through the prophet Daniel the very cornerstone of our faith. May this give us the assurance that Your plan of salvation was set in motion from the very moment sin entered into the world. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.