The Prophecy of (First) World Hegemony & the Final, Temporal, Super-Power, Kingdom of God (Dan 2:34-35, 44-45)
The Prophecy of Daniel 2 is patently, and with good reason, used as an introductory and
foundational study about the Bible and Bible Prophecy, as it reveals that the Bible is a Supernaturally inspired book which accurately predicts the future. But of course not everyone, namely non-Bible Believers (see e.g. pertinently here), have that view. The purpose of this blog post is to present the evidence for this understanding belief of Bible believers from this “springboarding” prophecy, but, as it was done earlier with the also popular and strongly evidencing 70 Weeks Prophecy, the presentation here will be done by a necessary more in depth, even correcting, study: Exegetically, Theologically and also Historically, of this key prophecy than what is typically done.[1] But before getting into the verse by verse exposition, a couple of key foundational points first need to be made.
Date of Prophecy - DSS & Carbon Dating
Succinctly state here the date of the prophecy of Daniel 2, (which predicts events from ca.
605 B.C. through A.D. Medieval World/Church History, through today) is scientifically/factually known, through the carbon dating of Dead Sea Scrolls which include it, (namely: 1QDana & 4QDana) to have been written/copied by around the 1st centuries B.C./A.D. (Cf. here & here).
For much more details about the dating and originality/genuineness of the Book of Daniel, see the following excellent, succinct exposition by Pastor&Apologist Mike Winger:
Theology of God and the Future
As the vast majority of Christians believe in the “Classical Foreknowledge” view of God, (which according to them is that: ‘God “knows” exactly what the future will, and so here, as in any Bible prophecy, is just relating what He “knows” will happen’), they therefore naturally present this, and any prophecy, with such a Theology/View in mind. In this Theological Views blog however, as presented in this post, it has been seen that the actual/correct Biblical Theology on God and the Future is, as clearly stated in Isa 46:9-11, that the future is actually “fore-planned” by God and in prophecies He is merely “declaring” what He has planned out for the future to be. And so, in the fulfilling of those prophecies, God is then acting when the time comes, and as “conditions on the ground/Earth” allow Him to keep His word (see Jer 18:1-10) to Himself act and/or summon/elect people to cooperate with Him in accomplishing what He wants to do on Earth then. The most fascinating thing about understanding the Bible through this more accurate Theological View is in seeing the Great Wisdom and Power of God to accomplish, and with far-reaching purpose, His overall redemptive purposes even as He is dealing with the various variables that mankind, and even His Adversary the Devil, is throwing against such prophetic plans.
It incidentally is quite validating that this more accurate Theological understanding, and its application in Bible Prophecy, comes to answer some common objections from non-Believers about Bible prophecies, as it will be shown, as they come up, during the exposition below.
Clip of (Full) Daniel 2 Dream
The Dream
Daniel 2:31 - "You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome.
Daniel 2:32 - "The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze,
Daniel 2:33 - its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.
Daniel 2:34 - "You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them.
Daniel 2:35a - "Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
Daniel 2:36a - "This was the dream;
In the ensuing interpretation of this dream, this resulting charting for this Prophecy of
Daniel 2 is very beneficial and should be referenced as it various delineated elements are brought up and expounded.
Clip of Daniel 2 Interpretation
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| Theological Views’ Daniel 2 Chart |
[An interesting real-to-life rendition of the Daniel 2 Statue:]
Interpretation of the Dream
Daniel 2:36b - now we will tell its interpretation before the king.
Daniel 2:37 - "You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory;
God has given... - As stated in Dan 2:21, God has an overseeing authority over the Earth’s Geo-Political affairs and here Daniel relates to the King Nebuchadnezzar how it is God who has given this preeminent position to the Kingdom of Babylon (=“King of Kings”), -technically known as the Neo-Babylonian Empire. God was manifestly seeing that, of all the kingdoms in existence in the world, Babylon, who had just emerged from having taking the hegemony over from the ruthless Assyrian Empire (911-605 B.C.) was the ‘best of other evils’ and could be trusted, at least for some time, with this “Superpower” rule over the then advanced (=First) World.[3]
Daniel 2:38a - and wherever the sons of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all.
wherever... - If Babylon had so sought it, it probably could/would have ruled over all of the peoples/nations of the world. This was like God have promised to give Israel a Land which would extend as far East as the borders of Babylon (Jos 1:3-6), but because of their faithlessness, (cf. Jos 1:7) they never manage to conquer and live in all of that “Promised Land.”
Head of Gold - First Kingdom (Babylon)
Daniel 2:38b - You are the head of gold.
gold - Gold of course was then, and even to this day, the most precious of metals. Babylon held the First World hegemony from 605-539 B.C.
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| Map of Babylonian Empire |
Chest and Arms of Silver - Second Kingdom
Daniel 2:39a - "After you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you,
another inferior kingdom - This of course was a kingdom symbolized in Dan 2:32 as the “breast and its arms of silver”. The Coalition Kingdom of Medo-Persia, -technically known as the Achaemenid Empire, defeated Babylon in the Battle of Opis and took over its authority and territory and ruled over the First World Hegemony from 539-330 B.C.
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| Map of Medo-Persian Empire |
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Succession to the Hegemony
At this point it is beneficial to explain how the introductorily discussed (Biblical) “Foreplanning” Theological View (FPV) about God & the Future crucially differs from the perspective of the (Traditional) Classical Foreknowledge View (CFV). In the CFV, God would have, and from Eternity, looked down through the ages, to this World’s history, and seen at this point the world hegemony of the Babylonians would here come to an end, and, another kingdom would succeed it. In the FPV however, it is Biblically understood that the future actually does not exist, and it would therefore be here that God would have reach this point where he could no longer work with the, unlike (the corrected) Nebuchadnezzar II (cf. Dan 4:34-37), increasingly proud and blasphemous rulers of Babylon (see Dan 5:1-4ff), and would seek to make a change in World Hegemony. Had His Israel been a faithful people, it would be them who would, as started with the Reigns of David and Solomon, certainly by now, be placed in this position of World Hegemony, but of course they had atrociously failed, and now God had to look to other candidate Kingdoms throughout the world to see who would best fill this crucial Superpower position and “hold the fort” until His people eventually became ready enough for Him to be able to have His Kingdom take this place.
So in the FPV, as stated in Isa 46:9-11, God searches the earth to find a kingdom/power that He can summon to fulfill His Plan for world leadership which he here had pre-revealed in prophetic depictions. And God does look throughout the Earth and at this point in World History He sees and deems that it is the Median and Persian Kingdoms which can best fulfill this role, and more importantly, that He can trust, and work with, to fulfill His plans about His undeserving, now weakened and vulnerable nation of Israel, the (remnant) Kingdom of Judah and the Holy City Jerusalem. So He acts to uphold and guide them towards this end. (See Isa 44:24-45:7; Ezra 1:1-4).
This Babylon-succeeding Kingdom could have been any of the kingdoms in existence in the world then. But it was the Medo-Persians which God favored as they were most capable of best fulfilling His wisely far-reaching (Great Controversy) objectives. (Cf. Dan 2:20-21) A key contribution that Medo-Persia made, unlike Babylon, is that they granted the Freedom of Religion to the nations that they ruled over, including Israel. So that is why they had no problem with even assisting in the rebuilding of Israel’s Temple in Jerusalem. (Ezra 1:2-11)
So what is to be kept in mind as this prophecy is continued to be expounded from this FPV perspective, is that all of the subsequent kingdoms which are going to fulfill God’s prophetic plan are already in existence (namely Greece, then Rome), and growing up in power and honorable values which God can make practical use of towards His own end. And when God deems that their time has come, He will, as necessary, act to put them in the position that He intends for them to be (=Dan 2:21).
SOP’s PK 535.1 Statement
SOP’s PK 535.1 Statement
That all Biblically said, what is even further Theologically revolutionary is that beyond this understanding that God allowed the Kingdoms of the World with the then, comparatively better/best “World Order-ing” ideology/practices to have an Imperial World Hegemony, Superpower position, the SOP in PK 535.1 states how God was actually then also giving also these Great World Powers/Kingdoms a testing to see if they would align themselves with His Will:
“Every nation that has come upon the stage of action has been permitted to occupy its place on the earth, that the fact might be determined whether it would fulfill the purposes of the Watcher and the Holy One. Prophecy has traced the rise and progress of the world's great empires--Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. With each of these, as with the nations of less power, history has repeated itself. Each has had its period of test; each has failed, its glory faded, its power departed.”
For these Great World Powers, God had indeed placed them in the National Superpower position to likewise test if they could improvingly fulfill such a responsibility. In fact it can be argued that Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome themselves came to be so opportuned by God because they had, -as it will continued to be shown in the remaining Kingdoms, developed Socio-Political ordering ideologies and practices which were more than less in harmony with His own will and plans, and for that reason, they could be of use to Him in His (Israel-forfeited) World Leading Plans. Thus Medo-Persia’s Religious/Worship Liberty*, Greece’s Democracy (cf. Exod 24:3) ; Rome’s Law & Order were essentially in line with God’s ideals, as seen in how Israel itself had been structured.). Babylon itself was indeed marked by a one-religion rule, which would be like God’s own rule if that religion itself was His own (Exod 20:1-2ff), so that may be why God specially Supernaturally worked with Nebuchadnezzar to show him was His will and way was (As in this Dan 2 revelation)..But Nebuchadnezzar chose for some time to rebellingly and defiantly not believe it (Dan 3) but then chose to believe at God’s gracious Supernatural demonstration/intervention. (Dan 4).
* Israel’s “Religious Liberty” effectively was that people were free to leave Israel and join the surrounding paganistic nation...-if those nations would have them (cf. ~1 Sam 27)
Later it will be seen from the SOP about the Fifth Era Kingdom, which was the era of the mixture of Church & State, it essentially was according to God’s perfect ideal, -as seen in Israel, and would be according to His will in Church History time, if the Roman Catholic Church had been upholding Biblical Truth, and also not compelling conversion or adherence by force (see COL 77.1; 21MR 152.4; RH, August 18, 1896 par. 2). As also later discussed, the United States has likewise spearheaded the Sixth Era of World Order with a Kingdom model which also started out by being more than less in harmony with God’s ideal, pointedly by having removed the element of Religious compulsion, with them systematically doing so by Separating Church and State. Fittingly enough, the U.S. itself came to incorporate many of the leading traits of the prior World Superpowers in its (effective) Imperial Rule. As God had approved, and made world ordering use of the prior Kingdoms which had such traits, it can be seen, along the lines of PK 535.1, how God would likewise give the U.S. a/the chance to prove itself, whether it would Biblically mold these commendable traits, or, as with prior Kingdom, use them to facilitate evil....Of course, the U.S. has also done the latter (= Gal 5:13-15 versus John 8:31-32ff), -becoming the prophesied Eschatological Babylon, which is why it no longer can be deemed to be a “Christian Nation” (cf. James 2).
Later it will be seen from the SOP about the Fifth Era Kingdom, which was the era of the mixture of Church & State, it essentially was according to God’s perfect ideal, -as seen in Israel, and would be according to His will in Church History time, if the Roman Catholic Church had been upholding Biblical Truth, and also not compelling conversion or adherence by force (see COL 77.1; 21MR 152.4; RH, August 18, 1896 par. 2). As also later discussed, the United States has likewise spearheaded the Sixth Era of World Order with a Kingdom model which also started out by being more than less in harmony with God’s ideal, pointedly by having removed the element of Religious compulsion, with them systematically doing so by Separating Church and State. Fittingly enough, the U.S. itself came to incorporate many of the leading traits of the prior World Superpowers in its (effective) Imperial Rule. As God had approved, and made world ordering use of the prior Kingdoms which had such traits, it can be seen, along the lines of PK 535.1, how God would likewise give the U.S. a/the chance to prove itself, whether it would Biblically mold these commendable traits, or, as with prior Kingdom, use them to facilitate evil....Of course, the U.S. has also done the latter (= Gal 5:13-15 versus John 8:31-32ff), -becoming the prophesied Eschatological Babylon, which is why it no longer can be deemed to be a “Christian Nation” (cf. James 2).
Thighs of Bronze - Third Kingdom
Daniel 2:39b - then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth.
Third Kingdom - This third Kingdom to ascend to World Hegemony is the Kingdom of Greece. It ruled from 330-168 B.C.
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| Map of Grecian Empire |
bronze kingdom - It is significant to observe by now that the metals are decreasing in luster, thus in value, and thus in worth given to it, as this dream unfolds, but actually increase in functional capability. This is to reflect how these world kingdoms would gradually lose their once worshipful status, where e.g. priorly the King of Babylon was viewed and obeyed/followed as a God, then where the Medo-Persian Rulers would still be somewhat, but lesserly, worship, with laws having effectively more authority than even the king who promulgated it. (Dan 6:8) By then the Kingdom of Greece had advanced a democratic form of government which proved to have more lasting value and impact for society.
And by having a more actual/practical worth than the prior two kingdom, it is not surprising to see that even to this day, many political and cultural aspects of Ancient Greece are still overtly or foundationally in effect in today’s civilly advanced democratic societies; much more so than what Babylon and Medo-Persia have been able to lastingly contribute.
over all of the earth - Greece did have a vast Kingdom, including towards the East and India. The understanding here of “all of the earth” evidently is in reference to the preeminent rule of Greece as a Hegemony. This is much like the “Superpower” understanding today where a nation like America can make such claims despite it not technically being an empire and not actually having any sovereignty over any other world empire. Yet it still is regarded in this preeminent position, pointedly because of the decisive power and influence that it can wield if the situation ever arose. Likewise Greek probably could rule even over the various nations and peoples that it did not actually seek to subjugate. Like India and Ancient China.
Metallic Value vs. Metallic Strength of Kingdom
(gold kingdom) - It can be argued/seen that the “lasting” contribution of Babylon, -and which is that which still makes it prophetically applicable today (Rev 17&18), just like gold today is highly valued more so for its deemed worth than anything that it can contribute to as a “workhorse” material, societies today still want a grandiose “Babylon” element in them where they are revered by others, including their own constituency, and which indeed is the case as seen with Historical Babylon (Rev 17): which is the Roman Catholic Church; and Eschatological Babylon (Rev 18): which is the United States of America. In other words, a competent student of the Bible can easily see that, despite all of the opulent and solemn pomp & ceremony, there is nothing of Biblically substantive value in virtually, if not literally, in anything that the Roman Catholic Church teaches and does, and yet virtually the world, and whether Catholic/Believer or not, does reverentially “pause” for any such ecclesiastical moments. (E.g. you don’t see that for events by the 1.7-Billion Member Muslim religion or +1.0-Billion member Hindu religion.). This is increasingly the same thing with the United States of America who, like the Catholic Church, once had a plausible inherent worthwhileness, particularly when there was then no better or other viable alternative, but now it can be factually demonstrated how many other countries are generally, and/or in specific areas, such as Political/Governmental, Economical, Societal, Cultural, much better than the United States, but the U.S. is still defaultly thought of as, pun intended: “the gold standard”.
Fittingly enough, gold (then silver), used to indeed be the “standard” in banking economics...until it was superceded by more practically relevant standards. And that is because gold soon proved itself to be too costly to have a practical value, or even substantive necessity.
(silver kingdom) - the just above mentioned ‘devaluation to silver’ naturally leads into this “inferior” kingdom to Babylon. Arguably Babylon was indeed more grandiosely-viewed and revered than the Medo-Persian Empire which, literally in its territory, succeeded it in world hegemony, but Medo-Persia was more functionally practical than Babylon. The lasting contribution that I am seeing that Medo-Persia had on the world and society was in introducing a then novel notion of allowing for religious freedom to nations it ruled over, including Israel. And that is why is was easily cooperative with God’s plans to have Jerusalem’s Temple rebuilt (Ezra 1; 7:1-24) and their Holy City be ruled by God’s own laws (Ezra 7:25-26); -as long as it did not pose a detriment to its own laws and rules (Ezra 4:17-24). This naturally took away from the luster that would be given to the Medo-Persian “overlords”, but it did much to stabilize the Medo-Persian Empire, and thus prove to be of much more practical value than was the Babylonian “one-religion” model.
The pertinent application I see this “silver kingdom” theme having in Bible prophecy and thus the later world and society is in how the Politico-Religious model provide by the (European) Holy Roman Empire which was marked by the union of (one) Church and State and also of course one belief, -Roman Catholicism, can to be superceded, but with much less luster, by the (American) Republicanism form of government which fundamentally had a separation of Church and State, with the “Church” part then being Protestantism which now can be found in 33,000+ distinct denominations.
It can be further argued that subsequent societies, as per a bronze kingdom along the lines of the Greece precedence; have since further advanced the model of governance and belief to a more democratic and humanistic level to where more fractional democracy, as seen in the popular Parliamentary forms of government (e.g. throughout Europe and in Canada) which can have much more than just two major/“big tent” parties be part of government, and without an overriding Presidential Office/Power. Similar in regards to religion, the Freedom of Belief brought about by Protestantism has been furthered to also include a postmodern “Freedom of Non-Belief” with atheism being prevalent in those societies.
Given that people have freely preferred to moved over to this state of things, and through a form of silent revolution, it would therefore have been impractical, in terms of maintaining a functional society, to continue to try to enforce the prior way of things, namely, the (Founding) American model, and certainly not the Holy Roman Empire model. And even in America today, though the Republicanism & Protestantism model is still defaultly assumed to be the reigning standard, it is being increasingly seen, indeed in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Primaries and Election, that the population is really fracturing into much more than just two major (i.e. Republican and Democrat) parties, to a least now 4 parties (i.e. with (Bernie Sanders type of) Socialism and (Donald Trump type of Neo-Fascism), both which actually are also less religious, being almost as equally popular as the major two parties. And on the Religious side, it is most evident from American society and culture, that unlike in prior days, Protestantism, indeed no (even Christian) Religion, is now what frames, undergirds and guides the accepted mores and norms.
So as it was the case with the decreasing kingdom values of the Ancient World, World Kingdoms did decreased in how they were reverentially/religiously viewed, but also correspondingly became more societally pragmatic, which resulted in a “better (i.e. compromised) peace”.
This understanding of the regression and progression of these kingdoms went on be spun on its head with the advent of the next kingdom, the Iron Kingdom, which was effectuated by Rome...and which has present mirroring application in the post World War II endeavors for (unofficial) World Hegemony by powers which before then had limited their influence and rule to their own borders.
belly & thighs - It can be plausibly argued and presented, at this point, that God also involved a particular symbolic significance to the body parts that each metal covers.
Symbolism in Statue’s Body Parts/Sections
Head = Babylon - With the Head being the area where all the thinking and control takes place, it can be seen how Babylon is best represented by this body section as Babylon did have such prominent “ideological” impact, and pointedly with its aspirations to “rule over the (advanced) world”. Babylon, arguably was the first nation to aspire to such objectives, surpassing what the preceding Neo-Assyrian Empire had ever done, or tried to do, -and pointedly in Babylon seeking to make its conquered nations “think” and thus behave exactly like itself. So Babylon may indeed have implanted this “(lasting) thought/ideology” in the community of nations, as notion which has lasted right through this day, and indeed can be seen in how its Spiritual Types: Roman Catholicism and America still try to influence and unite other peoples and nations to come to be under its very own belief and ideology.
Arms and Chest = Medo-Persia - The section and parts of the Body which is seen as what best contributes to productive strength are the arms and the chest, -indeed typically the most muscularly focus and developed area of the (male) anatomy. Given how Medo-Persia was much more effective in achieving what Babylon had conceived, i.e. in having a united worldwide empire, it can be seen why without such “strength”, the Babylonian ideal would indeed not be capable of having lasting success. And even today it can be seen that it is this Medo-Persian model which is the strength of any ideal of a united body where in world unions such as the United Nations or the European Union, or even in Federated Countries, individual members are allowed to maintain their various sovereign distinctiveness while still being part of the group. Surely if, as with the Babylonian Model, these nations/states/groups were first asked, or worse, forced, to have the uniform view of the whole, such unions would certainly not last, even if attemptedly achieved. So the Medo-Persian approach has indeed proven to be a “strong” framework...
One can even further symbolically see that with the arms and chest representing 2+ sets of muscular region which typically work together to get work done (e.g. you cannot bench press weights without your arm muscles involved in aiding the chest muscles), it can be argued that this is representative of how, in this prophecy, it was two nations (Media and Persia) which united together to establish and maintain for a while a strong and stable hegemony. In fact it can be interpretatively seen that each arm themselves represented each nation in that coalition, and the chest muscle represented what they more strongly produced together. (E.g. no one [I know of] can curl 400lbs, i.e. with their arm muscles, but people are able to bench press that weight and more with their arms still being indispensable to that overall feat.) So in summary here: one arm was Media, the other arm was Persia, and the Medo-Persian coalition empire was the “arms and chest”.
Relatedly just like silver is more functional, practical and stronger than gold, the Medo-Persian Empire (539-330 B.C. = 209 years) hegemonicly ruled better, and thus +3 times longer, than had Babylon (605-539 B.C. = 66 years).
Belly & Thighs = Greece - Therefore, at the belly and at about the thighs which represent Greece, it can be seen that this is where both the “appetites/cravings/drives” which include sexual ones , of the body is centered (cf. Phil 3:19, Rom 16:18), and also, in the thighs, where the strongest muscles in the body are located. E.g. for the latter point, an Olympian weightlifter, who perform the greatest of human dead-weight lifting demonstration, would be nothing without the strength of his thigh muscles. On the prior point, it can be seen in history that Greek culture caused the world to take a sensual turn as it became more prevalent and spread throughout the world. As a microcosmic example of this, of all the New Testament Churches, the Church in Corinth Greece was a church plagued with all kinds of sexual immorality issues (e.g. 1 Cor 5), pointedly because of the Humanistic Greek Culture that it was immersed in. Greek Culture prided themselves on wisdom (Greek: “sophia”) and thought that by this philosophying, -(which means: “friend of wisdom”), they had found the way to solve the world’s problems and mysteries....but it just further entrenched them into all kinds of irrationalness and stupidity (cf. Rom 1:22ff).
So Greeks made the Humanities the Science and God of their day. They brought forth various forms of structured entertainments and arts. They also introduced raw/mob democracy as the ideal form for self-rule.
Therefore:
-like the greatest appetites and great-est strength in/of the “belly”, and the thigh muscle the Greek “contributions” to world society in meeting the base/natural needs of men proved to be the strongest from any of these world hegemonies, indeed lasting in some, even re-instituted, form right through this day.
-like the included cravings drive and sensual baseness of the belly & thigh region/section, Greek Culture also unleashed human pleasuring and debauchery as an art form/norm...much like its neo-descendant today “show business”, a.k.a. “Hollywood”, has, -through the “arts and entertainment”, served to normalize and spread various baseness of humans in today’s society.
-And, like the metallic strength of bronze, by being so natural and normalize, both starting in the World of Ancient Greece right through today, despite a period of societal reform and morality in between, it became most functionally entrenched and valued. It is also interesting to see here that, as with the lesser luster of bronze as compared to gold and silver, humans have long realized the limitedness of having a society wholly awashed in those Greek/Humanistic traits, While Democracy is highly valued, it didn’t take long to realize that the indiscriminate “Mob Rule” that it led to was not ideal. Similarly while the baseness in their lifestyle, arts and entertainment was deemed to be good by being so “naturally” enjoyed it clearly brought about all kinds of adversities which showed that this touted freedom had to be limited and checked. Not even Greek Philosophy and Wisdom had the answer to what the truth of matters were.
Interestingly enough, modern society had a rebirth of this Greecian Liberalism Era. Following the rule of Catholicism (=a Neo-Babylon); then Protestantism (=a Neo-Medo-Persia), starting around the era of the “Roaring 1920”, a once mainly and greatly religious people, pointedly in Influential America, started giving way to living according to a now openly accepted base and debauch lifestyle. And that was fueled by a sudden influx of what seemed to be ready money due to a booming economy. The Depression of the 1930's and the World War Era of the 1940's came to subdue this endeavor, but a return to peace, stability and prosperity starting in the 1950's resumed, and with a “vengeance”, this pursuit of human baseness and debauchery. This was furthered in the experimental and licentious “Hippie” era of the 1960's and the quasi-suicidal days of the 1970's....but only to be radically curtailed by the reaping of fully-bloomed consequences in the 1980's with health epidemics (e.g. Aids and other STD’s), drugs, crime and systemic poverty.
Like the experiment of Greek Society before, this sobering debacle in modern society led to a realization that this Neo-Greecian Culture had to be regulated and controlled, and like Ancient Greek Society, it would be an overseeing system of Law and Order which would have to be implemented. This was the Roman System in the ancient world with its “Rule of Law” as it likewise was for modern society today. (E.g. trying legally buying alcohol while under 21). About Ancient Greek society, I think that it is quite emblematic that its Great leader who effectuated its hegemonic ascendency, Alexander the Great typically has his life summarized as: ‘he easily conquered the world, but was conquered by wine’.
So despite the above-cited “natural” great strengths variously encapsulated in this “Bronze Belly & Thighs Kingdom”, it would still require the forged strength in the Iron Legs Kingdom which superceded it to achieve a comparatively lasting World Hegemony.
Relatedly here, it was earlier observed how silver Medo-Persia (209 years) had proved to be longer lasting than gold Babylon (66 years) given the greater material strength of silver (e.g. ultimate tensile strength =170 MPa) compared to gold (= 100MPa), and with bronze being made of ca. 88% copper (210 MPa) and 12% tin (=15-200 Mpa), it would be expected that, as per the above observation/rule the world hegemony of Greece would be greater than Medo-Persia. However Greece rule the world for ca. 162 years (330-168 B.C.)....but the observation/rule-sustaining reality here is that, significantly way more so than for Babylon or even Medo-Persia, whose various contributions in Religion/Philosophy, Government, Language, Culture actually for the most parts came to be discarded when their world Hegemony was put to an end, it certainly was not so for Greece. Pointedly in regard to Culture and Language and even Theistic Beliefs/Philosophy, these all remained alive and well into the Roman Empire’s Age, having spread throughout the world regions that it had established its rule right into, and even through, the rule of the Iron Kingdom which replaced it as the World Super-Power then.
Legs of Iron - Fourth Kingdom
Daniel 2:40 - "Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces.
strong as iron - The defining characteristic of/for this Fourth Kingdom would be its great ‘crushing and shattering/breaking strength’. Unlike the prior Kingdoms who were known in their rule (i.e. not conquest, -for all of those powers used military force to ascend to World Hegemony) for some facet other than their Militarism, this power would be known to sustain its rule pointedly through the prominent resort and use of Military Force. So to review the above cited ways how the prior three Hegemonies defaultly maintain unity and compliance in their Empire:
-Babylon virtually brainwashed everyone to have the same religious views as itself, including making the elites of its conquered nations reside in Babylon to offer such devotion and worship to Babylon and its Gods..
-Medo-Persia was all about restoring local Freedoms in matter of Religion as well as Civil affairs, as long as the nation did not use that to become antagonistic their rule.
-Greece thought that by spreading its democratic value to all of those nations, these other nations would be swoon by the natural pull of satisfying their humanistic appetites and whims, and would therefore most freely, and thus enduringly, choose to remain under the rule of Greece, including its entertainment culture and (most precise of) language. And in many ways Greece was correct about this expectation. However part of Greece’s Democratic Freedom philosophy was that people could, and would, also choose to be ruled however they wanted to be, and that included not being ruled democratically at all, as it occurred with Israel.
One would have expected this humanism-based rule of Greece to have lasted longer being so entrenched in the Natural Freedom of man, but it did not....probably because a rising power which had been inceptively founded in Italy in 753 B.C. had now reached a point where it felt that its own form of governing, which was a (Senate of Elites and Assembly of the People) bicameral representative democracy and strong militarism [and this does sound like the United States by no coincidence] was the best way to achieve a better peace. So Rome flowed passed its Italian borders and came onto the international scene, and proceeded to steam-roll itself into the spot of World Hegemony starting in ca. 168 B.C.....and held that position for the next, and an up to then unprecedented, 644 years.
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| Map of Roman Empire |
break all these in pieces - This is a point in this up to then very straightforward and precisely fulfilled, prophecy where skeptics and critic have a quibble with it, as they claim that this statement in the prophecy could not have been, and was not, fulfilled as stated because: the preceding Kingdoms (namely Babylon and Medo-Persia) were not ‘all still present for Rome to break them all into pieces’. But in some trace presence, a, albeit very weak and depleted remnant/shadow of these prior kingdom could still be found in the world then, even if merely as their still populated once Kingdom Capital City of Babylon/Susa. But beyond a physical point here, what Rome did indeed “crushingly” do through pointedly the force of its deployed Militarism, was to stamp out whatever residual hope/aspiration these, and any other nation, kingdom and people ever had at even gaining their prior sovereignty, let alone any thoughts of ascending to World Hegemony. So whatever element in regards to World Hegemony that these prior Kingdom had instilled as a possibility in the minds and hearts of men, Rome certainly “broke” this dream, as well as the wills, of the people and nations it ruled over.
Perfect case in point, Medo-Persia had given Israel the full freedom to execute its Laws (of Moses) in their realm, which included Capital Punishment (see Ezra 7:25-26). Greece even famously tax-exempted Jerusalem (albeit only on Sabbatical years) because Alexander was awed by the (Dan 8:21; cf. Dan 7:6) prophecy which had predicted his world rule (see Josephus, Antiquities 11:8.5 [#337-#339]. -The wider context of that quite Spiritually/Supernaturally/Prophetically amazing episode of Alexander's visit to Jerusalem is made here.) . But Rome would just not care. Nothing, no local religious belief, practice and/or law, was going to get in the way of it collecting taxes from the people it ruled over. And that was the actual reason why it banned Capital Punishment by local nations (cf. John 18:31) as this potentially could short them of a tax-payer. So with that extreme of a civilly-totalitarian Empire policy, Rome did have no choice but to sustain it through hyper-militarism and military-policing.
Of course Rome had beneficial objectives with all of the taxes that they collected, pointed in the form of major public works and projects, including the maintaining of its achieved Pax Romana through its militarism. It can even be argued/seen that Rome curtailed and held in check the debauchery culture that Greece had started to spread by forcing people to be productive enough through work and entrepreneurialism, in order to be able to meet their tax-quotas and avoid the penalties of Rome. Much like God had allowed hard-er work to be a consequence of sin from the Beginning in order to keep sin in check (Gen 3:17-19|PP 60.1), manifestly, with life around the time of the First Century A.D. having become relatively much easier to live, and thus providing much more ‘idle time to serve as the Devil’s playground’, with His Israel Nation still in no position to be a positive force of influence for good and righteousness in the world then, God’s next best resort was the Governance, and Law and Order measures/policies that Rome had managed to achieved. So God allowed them to gain the Hegemonic ascendency. (Dan 2:21; Rom 13:1-6). It can even be seen throughout the New Testament how the relative fairness of rule of Rome was quite facilitative, beneficial and conducive to the unhindered spread and establishment of the Gospel throughout the then known world.
So, as a recap, Rome did come on the scene with a Iron Fisted Globalization approach, and even if there were any such notion, there certainly was no returning to, or venturing into, any past, or new, alternative form of rule throughout all of the nations that Rome ruled over.
Metallic Value vs. Metallic Strength of Kingdom
(Iron kingdom) - As cited earlier, Iron is the strongest of the metals, -even of any the materials, found in this Dream’s Statue. Its closest rival would be bronze, which was representative of Greece. And it is quite accurate that even though Rome had achieved a much stronger hegemony and rule than Greece, various aspects of the Rule of Greece remain quite vibrant even under Roman rule: namely the lingua franca of the Empire as still Greek, with Latin being limited to Rome/Italy and official Roman Government Affairs/Institutions. Greek (Popular) Culture also prevail in the Arts and Entertainment, but were kept in check by the Roman productive lifestyle. And Greek Direct and Mob Democracy was overruled by Rome’s Republicanism, (much like it is the present case with American/Western Democracy).
For the very first time here in this unfolding of World Hegemonies, we have a Kingdom whose symbolic representation metal virtually has no inherently ascribed value. (Even to this day, iron is not considered a valuable metal in itself unlike Gold, Silver and Bronze -{being made up mainly of copper} =Olympic Medals metals). This is perfectly reflective of how the rule of Rome, despite Romans being also very paganly-religious/superstitious peoples, unlike, and decreasingly so, with the prior World Kingdoms, they did not mix in such personal beliefs into their philosophy for Ruling. Babylon had a cult of their gods. Medo-Persia had a cult of the laws of their kings. Greece had a cult of humanism. But though Rome had forms of all of these cultish ideologies, when put into practice, their ruling ideology was purely of pragmatic value. Hence it is indeed best symbolized, value wise, as the purely practical metal iron. Unlike those other metals, iron only gains value in what it manages to produce, and that, performance-wise, strongly/reliably so (e.g. today, a car, a bridge, a skyscraper). And while you may today find thieves stealing construction/manufactured products just to melt them down and resell them for their metal value if they are made of, or contain, gold, silver or copper, at best a thief will only steal something made of iron/steel, if it has, or contributes to, functional value in its final product form (e.g. tools, a car, etc).
So the Rule of Rome saw way more sustaining “value” in having a practical hegemony rather than one which merely “religiously/ideology” has value ascribed to it. Reflectively enough, and contributive to the value of their rule, they saw value in what a person did versus merely in who a person was, and thus open Roman Citizenship to anyone who manifested such value. {again this non-coincidentally has resemblance to what America did when it emerged on the scene as a World Power, including in its open immigration policy}.
Symbolism in Statue’s Body Part/Section
Legs = Rome - Now in regards to the present symbolism element found in the corresponding body parts which these Kingdom have been identified with by God, you can have the best of ideas and ideologies (Head); the best of functional/productive strength (Chest and Arms); the most common/basic/strongest of vital and quasi-necessary (human) appetites and needs (Belly & Thighs); but if you are “cut off at the legs”, you are not going, let alone stand, any where. And this is where Rome honed in on in order to have a lasting World Hegemony. They were going to take this “lasting stand”, and even amongst highly hostile nations, and thus by, and with, “iron (militaristic) force”.
But what Rome would eventually learn, even if it was a relatively long time down the line, some 644 years later, that even without this “strong stand” through force, its objectives still needed “feet” in order to become established where it was standing. (cf. Deut 11:24-25; Jos 1:3; 14:9; Rev 10:2b) Hence the ensuing “feet” section in this World Rule Dream.
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| Feet+Toes of Clay & Iron of Daniel 2 |
Feet of Clay & Iron - Fifth Era Kingdom[s]
Daniel 2:41 - "In that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay.
potter’s/(miry) clay - Succinctly stated here from the consistent testimony, and representative usage, of//in Scripture in passages like Jer 18:1-6; Isa 64:8; 2 Cor 4:7; plus the enjoining, defining testimony of the Spirit of Prophecy in 1MR 51.1; plus see detailedly more on this in here[23:08ff]; the Biblical identity of the symbol clay is as God’s People/Church.....And also quite significant enough, this symbol more basically/technically is representative of a Maker (=God) vs. crafted (pottery) vessel (cf. Isa 29:16; 45:9), and as such these formed vessels can be, or be reshaped into, “God-endured/allowed/sealed vessels of wrath” (Rom 9:14-19, 20-23; cf. Rev 17:17; 2 Thess 2:9-11) which is, pertinently enough, what occurs with God’s Christian Church/People in Church History as it is allowed to morph into Babylon (i.e. Catholicism & America) which will incur God’s (unmingled) wrath (Rev 14:9-10; 16:19) for what it has chosen to (wrathfully) do upon the world (Rev 17:2-6; 18:5-7) by having idolatrously rejected and exchanged Christ’s Gospel and the image of God (2 Cor 4:4b) for their crafted “image of the beast” (Rev 13:14-15)
feet of clay and iron = No other entity challenged the Rule of Rome as did Christianity...but it did so non-intentionally and yet most legitimately. As Christianity (freely) spread throughout the people which Rome ruled over, it gained many converts, including amongst Romans themselves, and of every class, and thus, the various internal pagan ways of Rome, the ideology to which Romans ascribed all of their ruling wisdom and fortunes, began to be exposed as mere worthless myths. Furthermore, whereas Rome had thought that world peace amongst nations and people who were so ideologically opposed could only be achieved through the militarism of their Pax Romana, here was a powerful ideology which was changing the very hearts and minds, and ideology and behaviors of people to conform with the much higher and stronger standards of the “Prince of Peace”. So, “miraculously” enough, here were clay vessels, shaped by their Masterful Potter (2 Cor 4:5-7) who were shattering to pieces the iron weaponry of Rome...and that, without even having wielded a blow. In fact, and most ironically enough, the more Rome sought to crush Christianity by the use of persecuting force, the more damage they actually did, not to Christians or Christianity (2 Cor 4:8), but to itself. Any domestic issues and problems of strife and conflict which arose within the Roman Empire only came out of pagans variously and persecutively trying to resist and oppose the increasing, heart-converting and righteousness-instilling triumphs of Christianity which was pulling them out of their prior false/complacent “peace” Any arose foreign issues of strife and conflict related to this wielded “Sword of the Spirit” (Heb 4:12-13; Rev 6:4) was actually due to an increasingly Christian Roman Citizenry naturally losing the moral and tangible support it prior could impose in trying to forcefully and violently suppress the struggle of other people (including “barbarians”) to gain their sovereignty and independence. It is also quite telling that what Rome was not able to do amongst the tribes of the Earth called Barbarians, Christianity would eventually go on to do, with many of them majoritarily converting to the Faith.
So in ca. 313 A.D. Rome thought it best to capitulate to Christianity, and, led by the recent Christian-convert Emperor Constantine the Great, the religion of Christian was given the highest of honors throughout the Roman Empire, because the only accepted Religion. So, as depicted in the Dream’s Statue, Pottery Clay which is symbolic of Christians and collectively, the Christian Church, was added to the already present element of iron, in here, the feet of the Statue. And indeed, through this dilution of Roman Militaristic force, and then-grassroots mixture, with pottery clay, the Roman Empire became intrinsically established where it had been standing.
Indeed this move by Constantine marked the beginning of a new way of doing ruling things for Rome (and also its successors). Whereas before pointedly Rome had (publicly) ruled purely from a Civil/Secular power perspective, now a new “power” had been forged and elevated to the same level of the Civil/Secular, and that of course was the Religious, here (grassroots) Christianity, Power. So from then on, Rome ruled according to two joint powers: the Church and the State. As the prophecy indicated here, “it would be a divided kingdom” in that the (Christian) Church and the State/World are inherently at ideological odds with each other (cf. John 18:36) when the core Truths of Christianity are upheld and not compromised or watered down. Converting people by fiat, and making the to be and remain faithful by force has never been God’s work in regards to people who did not, of themselves, profess to believe in Him. But this is the path that Rome, starting with Constantine, chose for the Roman Empire, the now inceptive “Holy Roman Empire”.
a divided kingdom - As stated above, the Church and State coalition of this era was a compromise by the State, the Roman Empire, in an effort to prevent the complete overturn that Christianity and its Ways were clearly going to unstoppably do to this Pagan Empire. Counterintuitively enough, this realized coalition of Church and State in the Empire is still being described as producing a “Divided Kingdom”. And the reason later cited in Dan 2:43 (which is the Seventh Era of this Dream’s Statue) is that iron and clay, though having been mixed together, just inherently cannot bound/adhere to each other. This was intrinsically because the true essence of the Church of Christ just cannot harmonize itself with the objectives of a Civil State. One of these entities would inevitably dominate this union, and with the State being of the constitution and strength of iron, it would be the clay-brittle and weak Church which would be actually fundamentally changed to reflect the aims of the State. So while the Church would, as before, work to influence change, the State would instead use for to comply it.
History of Church & State - Now to summarily look down through the years in history when this ‘Church-supported-by-the-State’ state of affairs lasted, and in various forms, with the main dilemma being: how to make this clearly working formula “stick (to one another)” (A summary segment, which should be read first, of the remaining elements of this prophecy from this point of the “clay and iron feet” on is given here. Most of the interpreting-proofs given, and applications-documenting made, there will not be repeated here):
-It was in its tamest, but inceptive, form from ca. 313-476 A.D. when Rome continued to enjoy a secure peace
-Then starting around 476 A.D. with Rome’s Hegemony having been dissolved, the power of the Church began to take on a much more strategic value in order to regain the prior Imperialistic Hegemony.
-And by 538 A.D. Civil and Church powers had cooperated to restore a Roman Empire, now a “Holy” one, and the “price” that the Civil Power paid was to now entirely cede its seat of power to the Church. Thus began the Papal Rule in a Holy Roman Empire which lasted until 1798 A.D.
-In future years, the Civil Power priorly centered in the Capital City of this Holy Roman Empire Rome, then Constantinople), increasingly came to be found in the palaces of the local monarchs of the ethnically different regions of this Holy Roman Empire. But even with these increasing Civil tensions and fracturing, what remained a constant, and what served to keep the Holy Roman Empire hegemony together, was the pervasive strong influence of the Church. Thus Monarchs ruled throughout Europe with both the “God-Given” (Local) Leadership of the State and of the Church combined in their throne....all under the Civil and Ecclesiastical Rule of the Pope.
So through this means, and thus throughout this “Feet = Establishing” Era, though the State Power was greatly colored by the Church Power, -which indeed helped it to regain a “foothold” in its territories where before it had been steadily slipping despite their militaristic stand, it would however be the”stronger” principles of the State for effectuating this Church rule which would prevail.
Toes of Iron & Clay - Sixth-A (Historical) Era Kingdom[s]
Daniel 2:42 - ""And the toes of the feet being partly of iron and partly of clay, by reason its end, some of the kingdom will (naturally) be strong but part of it will have been in a broken up state."
toes - Now while the “clay and iron feet” had done their inherent part well in “establishing” the (Religious) Holy Roman Empire in the territories where the “iron legs” of the (Secular/Pagan) Roman Empire had priorly “taken a strong militaristic stand”...when it came to spreading this specific, and type of, World Hegemony beyond the realm, and nations, that the Holy Roman Empire ruled over and covered, thus to the many other nations in the world, including newly forming nations around and after 1798 A.D. this Church and State model, with the Church (=clay) being enforced by the State, which had been the norm for 1260+ years, (and not surprisingly producing an era drenched in the blood of the religious persecution of true Bible Believers from the Church in Power then, the Roman Catholic Church (=Dan 7:25; 8:24-25; 12:7)), just of itself proved to not be a proper equilibrium for doing things, even in an era when the Church was, and indeed defaulty so, still being held in very high regard by the vast majority of the people in the State. Indeed even in the days of Colonial America, the endeavor then to have an Official/State Church which, if this empowerment was to mean anything, likewise had its Dogma enforced by the power of the State, proved to also be an era of persecution for even those who had legitimate Biblical objections. (See here[12:05-20:37] and here [01:29:29-01:41:46] for more details and documenting). So a new form of “balance” had to be found to convincingly and sustainably effectuate this endeavored spread.
It is the natural function of toes to provide balance and stability to the body, pointedly when not standing still/straight, but when in (esp. forward) movement. So a distinct and new era in World Hegemony occurred at this point where the toes on the feet begin, and, actually symbolically, and thus interpretively, significantly enough this was achieved by making the two competing powers here of the State and the Church both be effectively free from auhtoritarian control and instead both be left to the free/democratic choice/will of the people.
First of all, it is interesting to see that this Sixth Era Kingdom is still being referred to in the singular despite it being symbolized by ‘10 toes’. This can be interpretively understood by (a) the fact that the numeral 10 symbolizes a totality, and (b) starting with this Era, -emerging on the tail end of the Holy Roman Empire, thus in the late 18th Century A.D., a just founded American Nation would begin to influentially, (later effectively forcefully/militarily), spread its domestic New Model/Order for doing things throughout the world, = a “New World Order”.
This NWO started with America literally cracking wide open the dam of the Old World Order’s Empire model when it, in its Revolution, broke away from being under the rule of the British Empire. And America then instituted a further New Order in this newly craved independent country by Constitutionally separating the priorly joined Powers of the Church and State. America now championed a new model where these highly regarded and leading powers would be in the form of Republicanism instead of Monarchialism, and Protestantism which unlike Papal Catholicism, allowed for the Freedom of Religion. So while the two powers of the Church and the State would still be inherently prominent in shaping this New Country (=the two crownless/“little lamb-like” horns of the beast of Rev 13:11ff), they were populously contracted/agreed to remain independent and separate of each other.
America’s model, and lead was soon followed by France who in their 1791+ Revolution, which did away with their Monarchy; and also with Religion, -initially altogether, but later merely in its prior position of binding authority.
Gradually the American Model spread to all of the regions of the world, variously busting up former Empires and separating joint Church and State rules, and thus creating the modern Democracies that we see, pointedly in the Western World today. Ironically enough, America thus effectively had “freely” engineered a Global Empire in the “Free World” which it now toutingly considers itself to be ‘the leader of’. So that is actually how, even if this “totality” of nations which has emulated and implemented this “Civil/Secular State and Independent/Free Church” model, could be considered to be as indeed jurisdictionally separate from each other as are the ten toes of the feet, it can still be considered as one Kingdom, as really/effectively: the American Empire.
Persistingly enough, as it was during the Fifth Era of the Iron and Clay mixed Feet, also in the Sixth Era, where this mixture also is present, the struggle remains the same of producing a sustainable Kingdom and Rule where the strong, due to populous support, competing powers and interests of the (Christian) Church and the (Civil) State can cordially coexist. I.e. Can once prominently, though freely so, so-called Christian Nations continue, in its essence, to be so while trying to maintain a Civil/Secular Government? One of these would have to give...Either the “Clay”/Church will win out and have it ways be carried out by the State; or the “Iron”/State will have the upper hand where the Church is helplessly subservient to its will.
As always, in order to arrive at the proper interpretation, and then application, one has to start with a most accurate translation, i.e. one which is more faithful to what the original text is saying. So in this verse, while most translations have rendered things here as merely “the partly iron and partly clay toes being thus partly strong and partly brittle”, there are also an additional couple of key terms and verbal forms which commonly have not been rendered accurately by these translators which actually come to present a different, and also prophetically more significant, meaning of this verse, as discussed just above, which otherwise seemingly is not making any such “advancing” point, but merely a summative/recapsulating one.
As always, in order to arrive at the proper interpretation, and then application, one has to start with a most accurate translation, i.e. one which is more faithful to what the original text is saying. So in this verse, while most translations have rendered things here as merely “the partly iron and partly clay toes being thus partly strong and partly brittle”, there are also an additional couple of key terms and verbal forms which commonly have not been rendered accurately by these translators which actually come to present a different, and also prophetically more significant, meaning of this verse, as discussed just above, which otherwise seemingly is not making any such “advancing” point, but merely a summative/recapsulating one.
by reason of its end- As discussed above, the feet and the toes, which are both made up of the mixture of iron and clay, which is the mixture of the Church and the State, do so compose an attempted Fifth+ World Empire model which existed from the time, i.e starting around 330's A.D., when the (Catholic) Church began to allow itself to be mixed with the (then Roman) State. This became an settled state well by the 6th Century A.D., and from that time on, until now, the history of nations have consistently seen this internal struggling, whether in monarchies, empires or even political democracies (e.g. the “(Religious) Right Wing vs. (Secular) Left Wing”), of trying to decide if the State and the Church should be combined in governments.
But here, God is saying that He will be working towards having an end (Heb. qetsath #7118 /Ara. #7117) of this Fifth+ Era Ruling Model and so goes on to stipulate what will be the crafted/allowed conditions which will produce that “end(ing)” of this, actually Satan’sDream, Kingdom/Empire ruling model, -for Satan sees this as the best way to deceive people into transgressing, at least some portion of God’s Law, by not merely having an outward form of Christianity, but disregarding some part(s) of its doctrine, and then forcing all others within a realm, -by law, law enforcement and pains of punishment, even death (=Rev 13:11-18), to comply with this abominable rebelling rule.
This is to occur at, and be reflected in/by, the “toes” portion of this (feet-toes) Fifth+, now effectively “SixthA+B”) Kingdom, as this depicts both a distincting separation as well as varying sizes:
will have been in a broken up state - Just as the toes of the feet are separated, and into then parts, which can be seen as being symbolic of a ‘complete (separation)’, God had planned for this Fifth+Sixth Kingdom which was seeking to have the Church and the State united to eventually come to be in a politically “broken up” state vs. being one unified kingdom/empire. So the once widely reigning Kingdom of Roman Catholicism and its Church-State model would come to be “completely broken up” into separate and distinct States. And while each of these ensuing States would all still persistingly have this pull towards themselves establishing a unified Church-State governing model, or also a State-Church model where this unification results in the State likewise overrunning the Church, this will not be in/as a World Ruling Hegemonic Power, as in those previous Medieval Days.
So God acted to break up world kingdoms into distinct kingdoms, and yet, as discussed in the next verse, the “abomination” is not, as commonly interpreted and historically applied with this verse, pointedly in these now distinct States once again seeking to become politically united, i.e. under one ruler (e.g. Adolf Hitler’s (political) plan for Europe), but actually in the persisting efforts to unite Church and State within each of these kingdoms. That is what God declares: “will not adhere to one another”....and He will interpose Himself (=Rev 17:14; 19:11-16) to prevent this State, when, as prophesied, momentarily achieved (Rev 13:14-18; 17:11-13) from continuing to adhere to one another because that State of Ruling Affairs will be compelling people to disobey God and His Law. Again, that is Satan’s Chief Objective and so the Climaxing Point of this whole, permitted Great Controversy. (=GC 582-592).
Seed of Men Combining - Sixth-B (=Eschatological) Era Kingdom[s]
Daniel 2:43 - "And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery.
combine in the seed of men - It is not surprising to see that with this Dream’s Statue of (First) World History still not complete, its development and understanding is even presently still being played out. While prior (SDA) interpretation have at this verse/point of the prophecy claimed that this “combining” was done in the vast monarchial intermarrying that took place in Medieval Europe in order to, as claimed, intrinsically unite Europe into one Empire, it is here being seen that those monarchial intermarrying were done in order to secure the existence of the various competing Kingdoms by effectively greatly dissuading the threat of Foreign-borne overthrow through war with each other....since they were now all “family”. But these Kingdoms would still remain separate jurisdictions, and yet they would still be greatly under the authority of the overarching power of the (Catholic) Church, thus the Pope.[4]
It is quite natural that further developments in World History come to hone, even correct, prior Prophetic interpretations and claims, and I am seeing here that a recent development in World, and especially American Society has done this for this “seed of men” stipulation here. First of all, it can be easy to see that Europe has most drastically, and long ago so, done away with that prophesied ‘internal struggle of the Church and the State ruling together in their territorial countries/realms...and that was done by the Church having intrinsically lost all of the “power” that it priorly wielded. That was not necessarily done by force, but democratically so, by the people having freely become increasingly secular in private life and ideology. So in Europe there is no tension between the Church power (whatever is left of it) and the Civil power. Even Canada is effectively at a similar secularized stage as is Europe...There the Church capitulated to the State.
But of course, that is not so in (so-thought) “Christian Nation” America. Active Christian Belief and Practice is still vibrantly alive amongst the super-majority of the populace, and so it is organically still competing with the State in order to see which power will prevail. However if history is any indication of the future, in having seen the Church repeatedly lost Culture battle after battle of what it was seeking to see from its beliefs be upheld as law by the State, even the battles that the Church is now fighting with the State in e.g. Religious Displays in Public Spaces; Abortion; Gay Marriage; Gender-confused Public Restrooms; “Religious Freedom” Restoration Acts; it should be expected, pointedly in an increasingly disbelieving and secularizing population, that the Church Power will also not prevail here. So effectively, these two powers will indeed eventually not be capable of jointly holding power together, and the Secular State will prevail in putting down every aspect of (Christian) Religion in public life.
Whether it was physically so (in offspring and families), or merely figuratively so (in culture and society), it can be argued that the way the Europe was able to dilute the presence and influence of the Church in the State was by the intrinsic and grass root union of “light and darkness”/“righteousness and lawlessness” = “the church with the world” (2 Cor 6:14-18) which typically “naturally” results in “the weakening of the Church” (1MR 51.1) by it conforming itself to the world. Given the actual spuriousness and flimsiness of Biblical Truth in the Roman Catholic system, this overmastering of Christianity in Europe has been easier to achieve than it has been in Protestant America, but with common Protestantism being mostly also founded on many of the key untruths of Catholicism, the end disillusioned result from having a Biblically unsupportable, and thus unreasonable faith are to be surely expected.
In the present generation, the unbelieving side is actually banking on present and upcoming generations, like Millennials and so forth, to produce a grass root crop who will (recursively), thus from their seed stage (cf. Pro 22:6), be less and less prone to be Believing than were prior generations. That is a viable reliance of their part, but it is not necessarily a, at least, infallible guarantee of “success” because people are still free to believe whatever they are convinced of at any point in their life.
Interestingly enough, the ideological clashing of these two camps is emblematically seen at, -and further significantly so, the American Political level between the (Republican) Christian/Capitalistic Right and the (Democrat) Liberal/Socialistic Left, and oddly enough a large part of both sides believe themselves to be true Biblical Christians and both sides also think to have the best way to involve what they believe to be Christian values in government. Yet in most ways, both sides are just wrong in their Christian and Biblical claims and aspiration. It is therefore not surprising that God looks down at this Babylonian Kingdom, which has confused the Truth and become drunk with this diluting concoction, and as in 2 Cor 6:17 tells His sincere People to ‘Come out from there’ (Rev 18:4).
So in recapping summary here, since the Iron and Clay cannot feasible coexist/co-rule together, it will be that one will eventually hold the sole hegemony over the other, this is presently the battle of these times, in the Sixth-B Era of Daniel’s Prophetic Statue. (=Rev 16:12-16) Spoiler Alert: the Bible predicts that: overwhelming circumstances permitted by God will tilt the battle field (=Rev 17:17; 2 Thess 2:9-11) in favor of the, albeit, Religious side, and that this is all to now demonstrate that even a world ordered after supposed, but false/heretical, “Christian” Beliefs and Values (Babylonian Religious and/or Socio-Economic Dogma) will not prove to be a viable World Order.
In the past, various attempts to have pagan/humanistic/atheistic World Rules, as seen in the Antediluvians, then later the above cited models which had managed to rise to World Hegemony, including with Pagan Rome which capitulated to (False) Christianity and later with originally fully atheistic France as part of their “Age of Reason” Revolution, all came to atrociously fail and had to turn in some degree to Christianity to salvage itself. Of course the present New Atheist movement (cf. this post) is endeavoring to re-institute similar Godless realm, this time confidently claiming that “science will be their (sustaining) god”, but they too will harrowingly discover, in fact, continue to discover, that there actually is nothing “scientific or purely biological” about the Free Will and Choice of humans...and only a heart/mind changed, renewed and controlled by the Holy Spirit of God can assure viable, happy and thriving society.
(Stone) Kingdom of God - Seventh Era Kingdom
Daniel 2:34 - "You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them.
stone - For the first time in this Dream’s statue a material for one of its section, now the Seventh Era section, -(where, as seen in Revelation -see in charts here, The Heavenly Intelligence (Rev 3:21-22; 8:1) intervenes (Rev 19:11-15) by His All Mighty Power (Rev 11:15-18; 16:17-21) to begin to wrap up the Great Controversy (Rev 18:21-19:9ff)), the representative material, a stone, is purely natural, without perceived value or even function, and humanly unimproved. The closest this had come to occurring was with the potter’s clay that begun to appear in the Fifth Era’s Feet Section and the Sixth Era’s Toes, and with that clay being inherently thought to have been shaped by a potter. But now, here is a raw stone -(to be discussed in more detail in the next verse), whose only potential value and function is if, as it will indeed be the case, is a “cornerstone” which is indispensable to properly building up an edifice. (=Isa 28:16; cf. Rom 9:33; 1 Pet 2:6; Heb 12:22ff)
cut without hands - This added detail makes it clear that what is transpiring here is entirely in/from the powerful hand of God Himself. It is God indeed who is flinging and laying this pivotal cornerstone (Isa 28:14-22 = Rev 19:11-15). The whole “most natural” and “human hands off” context for this development recalls what God had foundationally instructed when establishing the covenant with His Israel right upon having given its Ten Commandment Supreme Law in regards to the “Law of the Altar” (Exod 20:22-26) God choosing to do so also here is not surprising as the prophecy is here revealing that God is establishing His Temporal Kingdom.
So God is here depicting that the effective violence with which He will abruptly bring this idolized statue to its end by ‘striking at its feet and crushing them’ is entirely of His doing....That is indeed how the prophecies of Revelation reveals things will “violently” transpire (e.g. Rev 11:13, 17-18; 16:18-21; 18:21; 19:15) And thus anyone in Babylon who has, or will have, an issue with that (e.g. Rev 16:21b), will just have to take it up with Him. (Rev 18:8; cf. Hos 4:1-2|Rev 18:24). When establishing Ethnic Israel in a land that was not theirs, God then had plans to also, as here, ‘act unseen behind the scene in seemingly purely natural circumstances’ (Exod 23:27-31), but because Israel was faithless, they were left with the only other applicable option of taking the land by the force of their arms, albeit mercifully Supernaturally assisted by God, as long as they were obedient and faithful, but the imagery that the dispossess people of Canaan, as well as Israel’s neighbors saw was an unlawful invasion and conquering and purely by Military Force. And so, for its entire history, Ethnic Israel was plague by that perceived image about them, and the accompanying ever-present threat of action by their envious neighbors in kind.
So allowing God’s original “natural” plan here to occur when the present ‘feet-established’ and ‘toes globally spread’ World Order, =a Babylonian World Order jointly anchored and seeded by Roman Catholicism, Apostate Protestantism and America (=Rev 17&18) to be enjoined by the duped (Rev 16:13-14) rest of the non-Christian World, religious or not. (Rev 17:12-13)...and all in order to oppose this establishing Kingdom of God (Rev 17:14), is what will leave no warranting excuse for retaliation by these nations and people when they are put down by God (Rev 19:15).
Temporal Kingdom of God - Generally/Introductorily stated here, having amply discussed above, as substantiated in history, the hazards of having an earthly kingdom/country in which the Church and the State and seamlessly united, it would seem hypocritical that God would be allowing, even assisting in, a temporal kingdom to be established which would be a purely Religious/Christian Kingdom where, e.g. all of the Ten Commandments would be its Supreme Law. Well, as interestingly enough stipulated in the SOP, in 1MR 51.1, it would actually have been acceptable if even the Church and State unions that had been attempted by the Roman Catholic Church and later Protestants in Colonial America, were ‘actually observing God’s actual Law and Truth, pointedly the Seventh Day/Saturday Sabbath Commandment.’ Then such a Christian Nation would actually have been endorsed by God as they would be: ‘defending the actual “the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints”’ (Jude 1:3), and thus would also (actually, i.e. unlike Blasphemous America (Rev 18:2-7, cf. Jude 1:4)) be “blessed” by Him...
...To the point that it most likely would be that any issue of infidelity and unbelief within them would have warrantedly risen to the level of a Capital Offense, as it did in OT Israel, because the powerful presence of God would have been clearly manifested in that Kingdom. It wouldn’t however mean that force would be allowed/used to convert people to the religion of this Kingdom, -rather, as pertinently prophesyingly depicted in Rev 19:15, the “word of God” would do its silencing and subduing work on the unbelievers heart (Heb 4:12-13), and therefore those who would choose to rebel while professing to be believers would not be held guiltless to whatever the applicable penalty for this sinning was. Unbelievers would actually still have the choice then of not converting, but then fully assuming their prophesied fate (Isa 60:12) and surely without scheming to be part of that Temporal Kingdom of God as fake converts (=Rev 21:25-27; cf. Isa 60:11) merely to basely avoid that natural consequential dying off. (Isa 66:24)
Daniel 2:35a - "Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time
all materials crushed at same time - Again, this is the statement in the prophecy which skeptics like to harp upon claiming that the Kingdoms (assumedly) represented by the metals, (e.g. Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, etc) should all be alive and well when they are “crushed all at the same time” thus today, and until the end when this prophesied final event transpires. But it is actually the material which makes up the statue’s body parts/sections which are then emphasized, thus substantiating the understanding cited earlier that even when these World Powers put down a preceding World Hegemony, they retained whatever aspect of the previous World Empire that they, e.g., ideologically, functionally and/or physically, deemed to be valuable for them and their own Empire. And that compoundedly trickled down right to our day, even if now remanifested in contemporary forms.
As a sample: (Silver) Medo-Persia valued the capital city of (gold) Babylon and thus also ruled its Empire from it, but Greece did not. (Bronze) Greece however valued the local religious freedom policy of Medo-Persia and so continued it, even allowing for religious taxation exemptions for “favorable” deities. (Iron) Pagan Rome indiscriminately taxed everyone and even controversially required honor to be religiouslisticly given to it Rule, but they did value the Greek Language and Culture and allowed it to continue. The ensuing (clay & iron) Papal Rome/Holy Roman Empire coopted Pagan Rome’s Militarism. And it can actually be easily seen that all of these historically valued hegemonic contributions of: Religious Freedom; Humanistic Culture; Militarism; Catholic Heresies; are similarly, and foundationally, found in the present defacto (iron & clay) American Empire/World Order which it has spread, in its golden cup (Rev 17:2-4) throughout the, especially First/Western, World (Rev 18:3)...and indeed all under the overarching: Satanic/idolatrous (Rev 13:11ff; 18:7; cf. Isa 14:4-14), blasphemous (Rev 17:5) and persecutive (Rev 13:15; 18:24)) “head” mentality as was “(gold) (Spiritual) Babylon”(=Rev 17&18)
Daniel 2:35b - and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors;
like chaff - threshing floor - It may seem here that this phrase is merely stated as storyline dicta and has no prophetic/interpretive value. But the “Shaking/Sifting” theme that it is using as background imagery here is one that is packed with great and pivotal significance in the Bible. (See Amos 9:9-10, 11-15). This is a prophesied climatic future time (Heb 12:26-29) when ‘God’s Voice will “shake” both the Heavens and the Earth (=GC 636.2-3) so that only what is righteous and worthy can, and will, remain, as He then works to establish His long planned/desired (temporal) Kingdom. Only the nations/people who then align themselves with God’s Kingdom will survive (=Amos 9:12b; Isa 60:12). As Peter says in 1 Pet 4:17 the same judgement which God will have effectuated to judge, cleanse and saved the righteous in the Church (cf. Amos 9:10 =Ezek 9) will also be effectuated to do the same in the rest of the world. (Rev 19:15)
Daniel 2:35c - and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found.
wind carried them away - In the parable of the Wheat and the Tares|Darnel (explained in Matt 13:36-43), Jesus, thus Divine Inspiration, symbolizes such a purging event by saying that ‘at the end of the world the Son of Man will send forth His Angels to gather out every stumbling blocks/tares and lawlessness ones from His Kingdom and throw them into Hell’s Fire.’ And also then, as described in Matt 13:43, will the eternal state described in Dan 12:3 to occur after the Great Time of Trouble and final resurrection from the dead (Dan 12:1-2). All this comparing to point out that the “Final Event” development here in Dan 2:35 is not at all as climatic as that which is understood in the (especially straightforward, i.e. non-prophetic) rest of the Bible as what will transpire at the Glorious Second Coming of Jesus Christ when then every things will be “burned up” (e.g. 2 Pet 3:10). But here the metals (and not tares) are first grounded to chaff like form and then the wind carries them away.
First of all, towards understanding what this means, given all that has been said throughout this blog, it can here be readily understood that in Dan 2, God was focusing on an establishment of His Temporal Kingdom, and upon a Typological Second Coming, prior to the subsequent, post temporal Jubilee Millennium Establishment of His Eternal Kingdom. That is why the resolution of things here in Dan 2 is not as drastic for the Glorious Second Coming event. Here it is the metals, which represent the framework for various type and eras of earthly Kingdoms which is destroyed and replaced by God’s Temporal (=Stone-Mountain) Kingdom, and these metals, having been grounded to chaff by that Kingdom (cf. Rev 2:26-27; 19:15-16; Psa 2:6-12; 110).
In the Glorious Second Coming (as applicable with the parable of Matt 13:36-43 -a parable which Inspiration however also says can have another application: i.e. ‘a Shaking|Sifting of the Church in the world’ (COL 70.2ff)) the unwanted element is not metals, but tares|darnel, and these, which easily could have instead been likewise ‘carried away by wind’ are instead gathered together intact and burned up in a furnace. Moreover this purging takes place to cleanse a Kingdom of God.
This distinction represents that the descriptions of Dan 2 represent what God will do to establish that Temporal, pre-Jubilee Millennium, Kingdom, and the Glorious Second Coming descriptions as primarily stated in passages like the Wheat vs. Tares parable in Matt 13, represent what God will subsequently, ultimately do to purge, after the Jubilee Millennium has been ended, that priorly established, and ‘world-filling’ (see below at Dan 2:35d) Kingdom from individuals (=tares/darnel) who will have resumed persisting in sowing stumbling blocks and lawlessness.
Also the“wind” symbol is very important. In John 3:8 Jesus showed that this symbol can be understood as a‘spirit’. Indeed the Greek word for “spirit” is pneuma and also/basically means “wind”. (As also in Old Testament understanding for the Hebrew term ruach -e.g. Dan 7:2 vs. Dan 7:15). Jesus also stated that this “spirit”, [in this context of John 3, the Holy Spirit of course], ‘has an influence on receptive humans’. In Eph 2:3b we see that Satan also has such an influencing spirit on humans leading them to walk in his unrighteous and evil ways. (Eph 2:2-3). Thus here it is an Unholy Spirit, and one which leads receptive humans to ‘walk according to the course of this world’. It is also empirically clear to see that the ‘course of this world’ inevitably leads to all sorts of strife and conflict, then violence and wars, and therefore ultimately death. So stating here in Dan 2:35c that the wind carried away these metal chaff to where no trace of them was not found any longer shows that after the Temporal Kingdom of God has ‘knocked them out of their position’, then grounded them to chaff, (as if in God’s wrathful winepress (cf. Rev 19:15), thus forcing them to produce their bloody wine (Rev 14:18-20), can be interpreted and understood/applied to mean that those metals chaff, i.e. the old forms of doing things in this world, are relinquished to a “corner”, -(e.g. to shells of their former realms and the ideological/warranting genesis from where they had originate from (cf. Dan 7:2-3)), and go extinct without a trace by persisting in acting on, and acting out, their failed and unholy spirits and passions. (Cf. Jam 4:1-10). That is all what happens when God allows the Four Winds (=human passions) to blow upon the Earth (Rev 7:1) and that simply by withdrawing His Tempering Holy Spirit/Influence from them, thus also with professed Christians who here have committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:28-30|Luke 12:10), and letting Satan’s Unholy Spirit take them over completely.
Daniel 2:35d - But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
the stone - To more detailingly and substantiatingly relate here the understood meaning of this symbol expounded earlier at Dan 2:34: this “stone” is an “eben” stone, thus not a “pebble”, but a ‘large/heavy rock/boulder’. It is not a “pebble”. In Matt 16:18 Jesus stated that the Truth the ‘He was the Messiah, the Son of living God’ (Matt 16:16) would be the Rock upon which His undefeatable Church would be built. That Truth indeed built up the Church of Christ which came to be known as the wife of Jesus Christ. (Eph 5:23-25ff, 32). In Church History this (original) wife because unfaithful and became the Whore of Babylon (Rev 17-18) which Christ had to divorce by the Fourth Series Era of Revelation (see e.g. Rev 6:7-8) and start all over in finding a new bride (see Rev 2:20-24) actually from a faithful remnant (Rev 2:25-29). So from the Fifth Era on, which is the Reformation Era of the Christian Church (Rev 3:1-6, Jesus has been working to raise up a new bride that is according to His True and Full Righteousness Character, and this He will have found in a bride who, when finally married to Him (Rev 19:7-9), becomes His New Jerusalem. (Rev 21:9ff).
Now in the Final Event prophetic plans of God in the Old Testament, which were originally meant to be fulfilled by His bride then, Ethnic Israel (=Rev 12:1), God has applicable plans to take His now New Jerusalem and make it that great stone upon which all of the nations of the world, all those who come against it, will meet their end. (=Zech 12:3) And therein will be fulfilled God’s warring strategy of ‘unleashing an “angry/maddened horse” of destruction and death throughout the earth’ (Zech 12:4|20MR 216.6) as it, -were it not for God injunctively withholding the Four Winds, could have occurred on/immediately upon 9/11, but will occur when the Second+Third Woe revolving around a 9/11 II transpires.
a great mountain - That inceptive, i.e. initially merely ideological, New Jerusalem stone will first morph and grow into a mountain, which, as seen in the related prophecy of Dan 11:45 will be God’s Mount Zion which is Christ’s fully complete and functional Church, i.e. in both Spiritual and Practical Godliness ways....
filled the whole earth - ...and that mountain will then fill in the world with God’s Temporal “New Jerusalem Kingdom” all upon this Heavens and Earth Shaking judgement action by God (Heb 12:26-28), for/during a final GC Issues demonstrating and testing in a Jubilee Millennial Era. This will be technically accomplished by up to 144,000 floating Holy Cities which will have virtually completely filled in the parts of the earth which are today covered by Seas&Oceans (cf. Rev 21:1b) to the point where even when the Glorious Second Coming of Christ will later occur, these ocean-based cities will not actually need to be destroyed with the fire then, being on water, but only earth-based areas (2 Pet 3:10). Therefore, as prophesied later in Dan 2:44b, and also related in Dan 7:14 this Temporally established Kingdom will be able to eternally endure....though, but likely only gradually, with vast physical improvements then, as the needs present themselves.
Daniel 2:44 - "In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.
never be destroyed - From what has already been discussed in the preceding verses above the recapping in this is now pretty straightforward. Only the “never be destroyed, nor left for another people” (cf. Isa 65:22) would need to be expounded upon here, but what was said at the end of the expounding of Dan 2:35d just above about how the NJK’s floating cities technically may indeed be capable of surviving the terra firma destruction that a Glorious Second Coming of Christ (cf. Note #5 in this post) will do is sufficient.
put an end to all - Indeed, as always envisioned (Num 14:21; Hab 2:14; Isa 11:9-10; 65:24-25) God does plan to establish a Temporal Kingdom which will put an end to down and supercede all of the other existent ruling World Kingdoms/Powers/Empires and also their spurious or outright destructive World Ordering ideologies. (=Rev 19:15-16; Psa 2; Ezek 47:1-12; Mic 4:1-8)
Daniel 2:45a - "Inasmuch 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,
cut out of the mountain - This understanding that God “cuts out without hands” -(thus still Supernaturally), that ‘violent toppling/shattering/crushing stone’ from an actually existing mountain, which is God’s established (Ecclesiastical) Mount Zion (=Rev 14:1-5; ; cf. Rev 16:16; 17:14; 19:12) has been priorly discussed throughout this blog at their pertinent related prophetic occurrences in the Bible, such as: at Dan 11:45 in this post; at Rev 15:2 & Rev 8:9 in this post; and at Ezek 38:8, 21; 39:2, 4, 17 in this post).
Daniel 2:45b - "the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future; so the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy."
True and Trustworthy - indeed!!! (e.g. Isa 46:9-11; Dan 2:21; Rev 17:17-18; 2 Thess 2:11; Ezek 38:4; 39:2)
[1] Some interesting “typical” (SDA) presentations of this prophecy have been done by:
Anchor Point Films (Chad Kreuzer) - The Forgotten Dream (featuring: David Asscherick/A.R.I.S.E.; Randall Younker; Erwin&Constance Gane; John T. Baldwin; Michael Hasel; and other SDA “scholars”)
David Asscherick: Discover Prophecy
Daniel Pel: Echoes of the Past
Walter Veith - Total Onslaught
Kenneth Cox - Dimensions of Prophecy
Mark Finley - Discoveries In Prophecy
Stephen Bohr - His Way Is In The Sanctuary
John Bradshaw - Revelation Today
Shawn Boonstra & Doug Batchelor - Disclosure
As this present blog post is not written to present a basic exposition of this prophecy, it is recommended to view these above listed presentations to get a background understanding of this prophecy. [Other wider Christian presentations can be found in this playlist]
Pertinently here, a common claim that is made by these expositors of this prophecy when relating its preambling circumstances and events (Dan 2:1-13ff), is that ‘King Nebuchadnezzar had forgotten his dream, and that is why he was requiring his diviners and sorcerers to first make it known to him and then tell him the interpretation’. But that claim is evidently based on a misunderstanding of the rendering of the KJV for Dan 2:5.
Pertinently here, a common claim that is made by these expositors of this prophecy when relating its preambling circumstances and events (Dan 2:1-13ff), is that ‘King Nebuchadnezzar had forgotten his dream, and that is why he was requiring his diviners and sorcerers to first make it known to him and then tell him the interpretation’. But that claim is evidently based on a misunderstanding of the rendering of the KJV for Dan 2:5.
First of all, in Dan 2:1b, it is the “sleep” of the king which has left him, given that troubling dream. Then in Dan 2:2 the king gives orders to call his magicians+ so that they can come and “tell him his dreams”. Notice it is not so that they will interpret the dreams, but that they will ‘tell him what he had dreamt’...and then make him understand what it means (Dan 2:3). It is pointedly at that ordered requirement to ‘first make the dream known to the King’ that these conjurers object to (Dan 2:4) and to that, the King replies Dan 2:5: “The pronouncement/statement from me is firm” and then he manifestly restates what were those orders which he had given in Dan 2:2. The dream had to be made known, and then its interpretation. That is also the same “pronouncement/statement” that he cites in Dan 2:8....and it is distinct from the ensuing punitive “decree” that he then warns of in Dan 2:9, and duly “commands” (Dan 2:12) and enacts in Dan 2:13, cf. 2:15.
So it is manifest that they King did not actually forget his dream...He knew exactly what it was, and in detail....But he was just using this special approach here in order to test and validate the credibility of his soothsayers so that he could then trust their interpretation.
Therefore it manifestly is an incorrect take by expositors (also in PK 492.1) on the KJV’s rendering as: “The thing is gone from me” to mean: “The dream is gone from me”. (The NKJV has the rendering: “My decision is firm”). But it rather is speaking of the summoning and charging “word/order” that the king had given at Dan 2:2.
Therefore it manifestly is an incorrect take by expositors (also in PK 492.1) on the KJV’s rendering as: “The thing is gone from me” to mean: “The dream is gone from me”. (The NKJV has the rendering: “My decision is firm”). But it rather is speaking of the summoning and charging “word/order” that the king had given at Dan 2:2.
[2] See the applicable present-day Eschatological interpretation of Dan 10-12 -(given in 536 B.C. (Dan 10:1)) here, which, as this study has shown and confirmed, was actually the “Old Testament’s Apocalypse” = ‘if OT Israel had been faithful’ (i.e. as charted in that post, the Dan 11+ prophecy was framed as is the structure and prophecy content of the entire book of Revelation...In fact, it can be sequiturly said that it is the book of Revelation which is expandingly and contemporizingly/updatingly patterned and structured after what God had started to prophetically plan in Dan 11....and which would have been fulfilled, ending in the literal, temporal establishment His Earthly Zion (Millennial+) Kingdom...if OT Israel had been faithful.
[3] Tellingly enough, later on in World History, a Neo-/Spiritual Babylon will emerge on the scene in Protestant America, and it can be conceded that God did allow America to become a nation and ascend to the Superpower position in World Hegemony, probably only due to the many sincere Christians who, especially in its founding days, were in it. But by now America has long perverted its ways and has indeed fulfilled the descriptions of the Whore of Babylon in Rev 17 & 18.
[4] Another popular interpretation and application made by (SDA) expositors is that the prophecy also stipulating in this verse that “the will not adhere to one another” meant that the kingdoms/countries which made up Europe, and even the world, would never be united into a single Kingdom/Empire. This therefore, e.g., led to bold claims by SDAs at the height of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich advances in Europe that ‘Hitler’s ambitions of establishing a single kingdom in Europe and beyond would never succeed’ See e.g. the special “Signs of the Times” prophecy issue of July 2, 1940 [Vol.67 No.26 pp. 1-6ff] entitled: “Will One Power Rule the World?”. (Cf. the retelling of a similar bold denunciation by an SDA to Nazi Official in this 2015 Prophecy presentation [01:09:31-01:16:54]). However these interpretations glossed over the fact that it was the iron and the clay within the kingdom (singular) of the feet, then toes, which would not cleave/adhere to each other, and not the ten toes themselves. And as SDA interpreters themselves (see e.g. in here) unavoidably cannot point out, Bible Prophecy does point to a time where the nations of the world will unite as one. (Rev 17:12-13)...all to wage war against God’s 7-Horns/7-Spirits Little Lamb Plan A (Jubilee) Millennium Kingdom (Rev 17:14).
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