Daniel 2 (Revised)

The Image:

With this as the first, I intend to put forth a series of articles, where each one will take a look at the various symbols and images used throughout the Bible regarding prophecies, particularly the end times. My hope is to shed light on what we can learn from the interpretations of the previously fulfilled prophecies and how we can apply that information to the as yet unfulfilled prophecies in the Bible. When looking at the unfulfilled prophecies the difficult task is not to allow the current events and world political makeup to influence the study and to simply interpret them based off of what we've learned from previously fulfilled prophecies. The range of studies will focus not only on the symbols and images throughout the books of Daniel and Revelations but, will look at the prophecies in Isaiah, Ezekiel, and of the minor prophets as well. They've all intrigued and baffled students of the Word of God from the time they were first penned and throughout the centuries following the prophecies there has been countless interpretations attempting to give meaning to them. What I intend to do is to walk through each of the symbols and images and to shed light on key areas that I believe have not been addressed.

We'll begin our review of the symbols starting with the image in Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar's dream. The story here is in the second year of his reign Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. He calls all the wise men of the land for the interpretation of the dream but the king either can't remember the dream or doesn't want to tell the wise men the dream. This is a problem for the wise men and so they try to stall (according to the king) and finally tell the king that they are unable to tell the dream and the interpretation. The king gets very angry at what he feels is the stall tactics and so orders all the wise men in his kingdom killed. Daniel, one of the wise men, hears of the order and asks for time so that he can ask God for the answer. Daniel receives the interpretation from God and in Daniel 2:31-45 tells the dream and interpretation.

The dream:

Daniel 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.
32 This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,
33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
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.
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.
36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.

and the interpretation:

Daniel 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

The interpretation of the dream is rather straight forward with a couple of interesting points I would like to make. The description of the image is of 5 separate sections (vss 32-33), some would say just 4 sections by including the feet as part of the legs section (that will be discussed later). Also that there are 5 separate minerals. As I mentioned just previously, what's been of interest is that the last two sections (legs and feet) have been grouped as one section by some interpretations and separate by others. So to look at that first question, as we read the interpretation through, we see Daniel describing the fourth kingdom in vs 40. In verse 41 though, Daniel clearly says "the kingdom shall be divided" and in verse 42, Daniel goes on describing the toes of the feet and uses the phrase again in the following text; " so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken"( emphasis mine). As Daniel gives the descriptions of the different kingdoms he is very clear in the numbering of them. Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom is the head of gold (the first), he then says another kingdom will follow (the second), then he clearly says a third and a fourth kingdom. In verses 41 and 42 where he simply says "the kingdom" he must be referring back to a previous kingdom that he has already identified and from the text this can only be the fourth kingdom. I believe that a simple reading of the text leaves us to believe that there are only four kingdoms discussed.

I would also like to bring up a point that by using just Daniel's interpretation of the image, all the kingdoms do not necessarily follow one after another without a break between them. They do follow each other but, from Daniel's interpretation (not the image itself) they don't necessarily have to follow immediately one after another. The only reason we would make that assumption is based upon the fact that the image is a single image depicting the kingdoms, unfortunately the fact that there is no break between them is not clearly stated in the text. The reason I am making this point is that we tend to make assumptions based off of our personal experiences and we need to be careful that we don't allow our on perceptions to cloud the interpretation. Daniel's interpretation simply tells us that there will be three more kingdoms (after Babylon) of interest to us. Also of note is other then Babylon already being identified for us, the remaining three kingdoms are not as of yet.

Another point I would like to make is that of the image. We assume again that its an image of a man but the text doesn't say that. Actually, Daniel's telling of the dream says that (vs 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."

Now the translation of the verse is just a bit misleading so using the Strong's concordance as a reference we can piece together the verse that might just make it a little clearer. The first 'great' in the verse simply means a large image as we have been led to believe but the second 'great' actually means 'master' or 'captain'. Also the word 'image' used is described as meaning an idolatrous image or form. Finally "the form thereof was terrible" means that it was a fearful or formidable image. So after reviewing the definitions of the words translated it pretty certain that the image described is not human and that leads me to the last point on this topic and that is there isn't anything in the text to tell us how many toes there are either. This might be trivial as we might later come into scripture that answers these questions but for now we just don't have that information. How many toes can it have? I can't tell from the text but in 2 Samuel 21:20 (also recorded in 1 Chronicles 20:6) there was a man in the battle in Gath that had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot and he was one of the giants of the land. Where am I going with this, nowhere in particular other then I feel that as we attempt to interpret the prophecies of the Bible, we should avoid assuming anything unless we are told specifically by the Word.

The final statement by Daniel regarding the interpretation also gives us some items to remember as we move forward with any assessments of other prophecies. The first is that the fourth kingdom will have multiple kings (vs 41) and yet be considered one kingdom so by that we know that a kingdom can include more then one nation or sovereign. The second point to remember is that during their reign (vs 44) God will destroy this kingdom and all the remnants of the other kingdoms (vss 44, 45) and setup a kingdom that will last forever. To clarify that, at the end of verse 44, Daniel says; " shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, . . . but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever" (emphasis mine). Something of all of these kingdoms will be in existence when God sets up the final kingdom. Whether the first three kingdoms come back into existence sometime prior to God setting up the final kingdom, or simply continue to exist in some way once they come into existence is unknown at this time but there will exist something from them for God to consume at the end of days.

The final point I wish to make for this article is one that I feel has been skipped over for the most part. After searching for other serious opinions on this I've simply come up empty. I'm not saying there isn't any mention of this point anywhere its just a quick search I performed recently came up empty. The point I wish to talk about can be found in verse 43 where Daniel is elaborating on the fourth kingdom and he gives this hint:

Daniel 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."

The obvious question here is what does Daniel mean by this? Who are the they of the verse? To find out one possible explanation of this we would first look at the surrounding text. What we find is we're dealing with the final kingdom prior to the coming kingdom of God. The timing of this puts us in the last days, so we need to look further into the Word about what it will be like at the last days. For this we go to the Lord's own words:

Matthew 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

So we have the Lord's own words showing us that as it was in the time of Noah so shall it be in the last days. Verse 38 tells us they were eating, drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage. All of these things have been going on almost since the beginning of time. Certainly since the time of Christ till now, so then what makes the end times any different and how can we answer the mystery of Daniel 2:43? For that we will look at what the scripture has to say that is specific to the time of Noah and quite possibly to no other time. In Genesis 6:1-7 we come to the time just prior to the flood and I believe we have what we're looking for:

Genesis6:1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

Note in verse 2 that the sons of God took wives of the daughters of men. To understand who the sons of God are we have at least two choices. The first choice is that they are angels that came down to mingle (if you will) with the daughters of men, the second choice is that they are simply men, or men of God to be more exact. The second choice though, really doesn't make sense in this passage in that since the men of God are simply men, the phrase could be simply written: "men taking the daughters of men" which tells us nothing new, furthermore it was in this passage that God finally decided to destroy men off the face of the earth (vs 7) He also included these 'men of God'. Looking at the timing, in verse 5, after the mention of the sons of God taking the daughters of men for wives in both verses 2 & 4 God is very displeased with the current events on earth and it grieves Him that He had created man (vs 6). For in verse 5 it says: "and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart (men's) was only evil continually" so in verse 7 He determines to destroy man off the face of the earth.

This passage gives a strong indication that this is describing angels mingling with men's daughters and having children (vs 4). But this also isn't the only place we find the phrase 'sons of God', this phrase is used three other times in the Old Testament in the book of Job as follows:

Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.

Job 2:1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.

Job 38:7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Although Job 38:7 can be interpreted to mean something other then angels the previous two verses cannot. If we continue our search into the New Testament we do find the phrase used several times by John and Paul. But here the phrase is clearly interpreted as Saints (but not in our final forms) as shown in John:

John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

What the New Testament shows is that as Saints, we are now the sons of God but not in our final forms as described further by John:

1 John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

To understand what we shall be we only need to look back to Matthew and Jesus' own words:

Matthew 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

In the New Testament we have a clear definition of who the sons of God are (the Saints) but not in our final form, Jesus in Matthew tells us that we shall be as the angels of God in Heaven. The Old Testament's use of the phrase is clearly that of the angels of God in Heaven. It is clear from the other passages in the Old Testament who the sons of God were and without any hint of any other meaning then what is used in Job we must conclude that in chapter six of Genesis we are talking of angels. The question now is could angels have sinned in this way? For that we look again to the New Testament where there are passages that do address the fact that angels might have done something like this:

2 Peter 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

and also:

Jude 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

So as we go back to Daniel 2:43, the statement "they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men" gives substantial evidence that during the end times we will be dealing with angels on earth, again, interacting with men. We already know from Hebrews 13:2 that angels are still among us in some capacity. For future reference I would like to point out a bit of information that can also be gleaned from Genesis if we look again at the latter part of Genesis 6:4 ". . . and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." The word 'renown' in the Strong's concordance indicates that these children became men of "honor, authority, or character", this will become importance when we begin our study of the final antichrist, the beast and how it now looks as to how he gains power.

Also, the ramifications of an angelic (demonic) presence on the earth, in physical form, mingling with men, setting up and controlling a kingdom among us should give pause and strike at the heart of every christian. No longer can we feel confident that during the end times we will be able to 'blend in', to lay low in a way. As one human in a crowd of humans we can stand waiting to cross the street and no one would be able to tell we're a christian. But, this will not be the case with the devil's angels present among us. Although they are not omnipotent in any way so that they wont 'know' where all the christians are on earth, they only need to be in our presence to know that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, there will be no hiding from the face of them. This is a time that will truly try our faith in God. But, take heart for as Jesus says:

Matthew 10:28 "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

We must prepare ourselves and remember, the worst that they can do is kill the body.

One final note simply to clear up a misconceived understanding of the children of these angels, they were not the giants of old. Note the first part of verse 4 in Genesis: " There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto . . . " Notice that the giants were already in the land prior to the angels taking the daughters as wives. Where the giants came from is not something we will look at here but suffice it to say that they were not the product of the marriages between angels and the daughters of men, at least not according to these verses.

I hope I've given you food for thought regarding our study of Nebuchadnezzar's dream. I also hope that I've laid a solid foundation that we can use moving forward. Just from what we've looked at here in chapter 2 we've covered areas that gives us serious insight into the end times and what we will be facing. One thing is we don't know the names of the kingdoms or who they are but, as we move forward we will see what the scripture shows us.

May God bless.
JB