Revelation
|
The Dream And It's Interpretation
Daniel states to the king that the dream is not known by any method or power of man, but is given him by the one God of heaven that has the ability over all the wise men of his court to reveal secrets and give revelation to those to whom He desires. Daniel then recounts the dream in its four parts. Daniel states that he does not interpret the dream for profit, but that he does so only to save the lives of his friends; (Counting worldly rewards nothing in comparison to the gift of God to interpret - for the salvation of his life and his friend's lives.)
-- Click To Expand/Collapse Bible Verses -- Dan ch2:v26-35
Dan 2:26 The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?
Dan 2:27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;
Dan 2:28 But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these;
Dan 2:29 As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass.
Dan 2:30 But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.
Dan 2:31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.
Dan 2:32 This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
Dan 2:33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
Dan 2:34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
Dan 2:35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
(KJV)
There are four kingdoms in series here as parts of the same image or "statue", important to note is that the dream was given to the king after he was wondering what would happen in the future - and this dream is interpreted by God faithfully. The series of four worldly kingdoms built into the one form or image comes to an end with another kingdom, the "stone cut out without hands" that begins at a point in the making of these kingdoms and causes the downfall of all the authority of the gold, silver brass and iron (with clay) kingdoms forming this image to which these kingdoms were raised up to create. This last kingdom of stone fills the whole earth and is never replaced by another - the authority found in the stone grows and lasts forever.
-- Click To Expand/Collapse Bible Verses -- Dan ch2:v36-45
Dan 2:36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
Dan 2:37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.
Dan 2:38 And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.
Dan 2:39 And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.
Dan 2:40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.
Dan 2:41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.
Dan 2:42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
Dan 2:43 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
Dan 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
Dan 2:45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
(KJV)
Daniels interpretation of the dream is so as to explain that the four kingdoms to come (which we have learned represent Babylon, the Persian empire, the empire of Greece and the Roman Empire) occur in series. Each replaces the former; it is also the case that the image itself the lower down we go are more base in nature. We equate the setting up of the image to a sequence of weakening restraint on the quality of morality of the empires - or that Rome is far more base than Babylon. However, in building such an (as great) image one would start at the bottom and build upwards; So there is a hint that the more base nature is the intent of the image's construction.
The image itself is clearly an image of some deity (there is supposedly good reason to believe it to be Ishtar, a female deity.) In any case, these four empires all shared the solar religions in a form of many cults.
The stone that breaks the authority of the empires is made at some time in the series of kingdoms, and we may discern that the kingdom is set up in the time of Rome, because there is the presence of the "potters clay" - an analogy to the prophecy in Jeremiah ch18. This stone represents the Kingdom of God, and the clay the people that are the elect of God. They as a "peculiar people" are called to be separate from the empire and its state religion, as well as called to serve God. They do not cleave to the state for their justification but have gained their freedom to worship from God true, not by permission by the Roman state They are seen mixed in with the iron, they are a people scattered throughout the empire, not a physical nation but one spiritual.
There is also a sequence that we see in the restraint upon the first four seals that is loosed over the bride of Christ in revelation, and we have in them the dragon's creation of four NT kingdoms to leaven the elect to which these four are the OT equivalent running in parallel.
The sequence of four kingdoms comes after two other kingdoms to which Israel had also survived from captivity, namely Egypt and Assyria. These are not mentioned, but we bear in mind at this point that these four empires in the dream each replace the one before by conquest. It is true also that these four empires ruled over all the lands of the previous ones plus extra each time.
There are many misconceived interpretations added onto this text. The later vision of a dreadful and terrible beast (The modern USA is the equivalent of Rome in parallel) is not the Roman empire. Also, even though the feet have toes; (It doesn’t say ten toes, the dreadful beast's ten horns are not the toes.) The end times beast is not the iron kingdom of Rome here. The silver represents the Medes and Persians, though they weren’t one empire - but a union of two - and lastly to clarify, the series of four beasts later in Daniel does not represent these kingdoms at all.
From revelation we learn the little horn of the later vision of Daniel is the reappeared state of Israel. As the "Eighth of the seven" Israel is the survivor of seven kingdoms, Egypt, Assyria, these four in the statue as well as the remade Lion, Bear and leopard beast in the form of the USA and new world order.
The more base nature of the kingdoms in the statue was the intent of the image, so that as time passed the people of Israel would take on the more base nature of the kingdoms within which they survived. Then the stone that breaks all the authority of these four empires replenishes and refreshes the people of God to a state acceptable before God, even to the filling (replenishing) of the whole world. The Kingdom of God will never end.
Continue To Next Page
Return To Section Start
Return To Previous Page |