Basic HTML Version
Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream of World Empires
221
what will be in the latter days. ... As for me, this secret has not been
revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but
... that you may know the thoughts of your heart.
“You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This
great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and
its form was awesome. This image’s head was of fine gold, its chest
and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its
feet partly of iron and partly of clay.
“You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which
struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.
Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, were
crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing
floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was
found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain
and filled the whole earth.
“This is the dream,” Daniel declared confidently; and the king,
listening with closest attention, knew it was the very dream that had
[177]
troubled him. So his mind was prepared to receive and accept the
interpretation. He was to be awakened, if possible, to a sense of his
responsibility to Heaven. God would open before him the events of
the future down to the end of time.
“You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has
given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory. ... You are this
head of gold.
“But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours, then
another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the
earth.
“And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, inasmuch as
iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that
crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others.
“Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and
partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the
iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay.
And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so
the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw
iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men;
but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix
with clay.