Daniel 2:31

Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed a dream that troubled him, and he demanded that his wise men tell him both the dream and its interpretation, on pain of death. They could not, and the decree went out against all the wise men of Babylon, with Daniel and his friends among them. Daniel and his companions prayed, God revealed the secret to him in a night vision, and Daniel blessed God for it (Daniel 2:19–23), praising him because “he removeth kings, and setteth up kings” (Daniel 2:21). Brought before the king, Daniel gave all the credit away: “there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets” (Daniel 2:28). Verse 31 is where he begins to tell the dream itself, and the whole of Daniel 2 turns on what follows.

Telling the dream first mattered because the king had lost it. Any wise man could offer a plausible meaning for a dream he had been told, but only someone helped from heaven could tell the king what he had seen. When Daniel recounts it in detail, the king knows that this knowledge comes from a source above any man, and so the interpretation that follows carries God’s authority.

The setting is Babylon at the height of its power. Nebuchadnezzar II reigned from about 605 to 562 BC. His empire had taken the place of Assyria, brought Judah under its rule and carried Daniel and many others into exile, and the events of this chapter fall early in that exile. In Babylon dreams were counted as messages from the gods, and kings kept diviners and interpreters to explain them. This part of Daniel is written in Aramaic, the common language of the Babylonian and Persian empires, which is why the words explained below are Aramaic.

“Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands.” The verb gᵉzar means to quarry or cut out. “Without hands” is lâʼ yad: lâʼ is the plain word for “not”, and yad is the hand, which in Scripture often stands for a person’s power, effort and means. Every quarried stone has a mason behind it, and this one has none. Verse 45 adds that it was cut “out of the mountain”. It comes from God alone, and that sets it apart from the image, which is a figure of things men build.

The stone strikes the image on its feet of iron and clay, the weakest part of the whole statue, and breaks them to pieces. That verb, dᵉqaq, means to crush or break in pieces. It comes back at the key points of the interpretation. The iron kingdom breaks in pieces everything before it (verse 40), and God’s kingdom breaks in pieces all these kingdoms (verses 44 and 45). Elsewhere in Daniel the same verb describes what the fourth beast and the lions do. The kingdoms that crushed others are themselves crushed by the kingdom of God.

Verse 36 is the turn from the dream to its meaning. “This is the dream” confirms that Daniel has told the king exactly what he saw, something no other wise man in Babylon could do. The word for dream, chêlem, is the night vision that had troubled the king. “And we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.” The verb ʼămar means to say, speak, tell or command. The word for interpretation, pᵉshar, means the meaning of a saying, a dream or a vision. It is an ordinary word, and the Chaldeans themselves had offered to shew the king the interpretation if he would tell them the dream (Daniel 2:4). What sets Daniel’s interpretation apart is that God gave it.

The “we” has been understood in two ways. It may be a plural of majesty, Daniel speaking with the solemn weight of one sent by God. Or it may include God himself, with Daniel as his messenger. Either way, what follows is God’s word. “Before the king” makes the occasion formal and public, with God’s truth spoken to the highest power on earth in his own court.

God tells his servants what he is about to do: “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). Daniel will read God’s message to a king of Babylon again, when the handwriting appears on the wall (Daniel 5:5). And God’s revealing of himself reaches its fullness in Christ: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18).

Daniel begins the interpretation with the king himself. “Thou, O king, art a king of kings.” The word for king is melek. “King of kings”, in Aramaic malka malchin, was a title Assyrian and Persian rulers also used, meaning a ruler over many lesser kings and subject states. It was true of Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful ruler of his day, who had conquered what remained of the Assyrian empire and brought Judah under his hand.

Then comes the source of it all: “for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.” ʼĕlâhh means god or God, and “the God of heaven” is a name for him used in Daniel and Ezra that sets him above all the gods of Babylon. The verb yᵉhab is the ordinary word for giving, and that plainness is the point. Nebuchadnezzar received four things, as a man receives a gift. They are a kingdom, malkûw, which means dominion, reign or realm, power, chêçen, which is strength, strength, tᵉqôph, which is might, and glory, yᵉqâr, which means honour, value and dignity. The list piles up everything a king could boast of, and every item in it came from God.

Verse 38 widens the gift. “Wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand.” The hand, yad, is power again, the same word as in “without hands”. God “hath made thee ruler over them all”, and the verb shᵉlêṭ means to have power or to rule. The words recall the dominion God gave to mankind at creation over the fish, the fowl and every living thing (Genesis 1:28), here granted to one king over his whole realm.

“Thou art this head of gold.” Gold suited Babylon. The city was famous for its splendour and wealth, with monuments such as the Ishtar Gate and treasure gathered from its conquests. It was the first and most glorious of the kingdoms in the dream. Yet all of that glory was given, and the king would later have to learn it the hard way. Walking in his palace he said, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30), and God humbled him so that he would know “that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will” (Daniel 4:17). The psalmist says the same: “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another” (Psalm 75:6–7). Paul writes that “there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God” (Romans 13:1).

“And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee.” The word behind “inferior”, ʼăraʻ, means the earth or the ground, and by implication what is low, so the next kingdom is lower than the head of gold. This is the silver of the breast and arms, the empire of the Medes and Persians. Babylon fell to them in 539 BC, on the night Belshazzar was slain (Daniel 5:30–31). The two arms are often taken as the two peoples, Medes and Persians, joined in one empire. Its lesser rank is usually understood as a lesser glory and a less absolute rule than Nebuchadnezzar’s, with authority spread among provinces that had more freedom of their own.

“And another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.” The brass, nᵉchâsh, is the belly and thighs, and this kingdom is Greece. Bronze was the metal of armour and weapons, which suits an empire known for swift conquest. Under Alexander it reached from Greece across Persia and Egypt into India, and “all the earth” means the known and inhabited world of that day. Later in Daniel the rough goat is named outright as “the king of Grecia” (Daniel 8:21).

The interpretation of Daniel 2 names only the first kingdom, but Daniel’s later visions cover the same ground with other pictures. The four beasts of Daniel 7 rise from the sea one after another (Daniel 7:3–7), and the ram and the goat of Daniel 8 add detail about the second and third kingdoms. The word malkûw, kingdom, runs through all of these verses. Each kingdom in turn holds dominion over a great part of the world, and each passes it on to the next.

“And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things.” The word for strong, taqqîyph, means mighty or powerful. Iron is hard and durable, and it breaks softer materials, so the kingdom compared to it will be the most forceful of all. The verse piles up its verbs, “breaketh in pieces”, “subdueth”, “break in pieces and bruise”, and the repeated dᵉqaq shows a power that crushes its enemies until they cannot rise again.

This fourth kingdom is Rome, with its legions, its law and administration, and a rule of unequalled extent and length that absorbed the lands of the empires before it. Daniel’s later vision gives the fourth beast “great iron teeth” with which it “devoured and brake in pieces” (Daniel 7:7). Some believers also see the two legs as the later division of the Roman empire into its western and eastern halves.

Scripture gives an iron rule to one more King. God says to his Son, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psalm 2:6–9). John sees the child who was “to rule all nations with a rod of iron” (Revelation 12:5), and the rider on the white horse who “shall rule them with a rod of iron” (Revelation 19:15). Christ’s kingdom comes by love and sacrifice, and his rule is also one of righteous judgment and unbreakable truth that no empire can stand against.

Three verses explain the feet, which shows how much weight the dream gives to its last earthly stage. In verse 41 the feet and toes are “part of potters’ clay, and part of iron”, and “the kingdom shall be divided”. The word pᵉlag means to split or divide. “But there shall be in it of the strength of the iron”, so some of the old power remains. The iron is “mixed with miry clay”, in Aramaic ṭîyn chăçaph. Potters’ clay is a common material that breaks easily, and the verb for mixing, ʻărab, means to mingle or combine.

Verse 42 turns to the toes. The word ʼetsbaʻ usually means a finger and is used here of a toe. “So the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.” “Partly” is qᵉtsâth, a portion or an end, used here as an adverb, and it comes twice. “Strong” is taqqîyph again, the word used of the iron kingdom in verse 40, and “broken” is tᵉbar, to break or to be fragile. Strength and weakness sit side by side in this kingdom and are never truly blended.

Verse 43 explains the mixing. “They shall mingle themselves with the seed of men.” The verb is ʻărab again, and the construction shows people deliberately trying to combine. “Seed”, zᵉraʻ, means offspring or lineage, and “the seed of men”, zᵉraʻ ʼĕnâsh, most naturally points to intermarriage between peoples or ruling families, or more broadly to alliances and treaties. Kings had long joined their houses this way, as when Solomon “made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt”. “But they shall not cleave one to another.” The verb dᵉbaq means to stick, cling or join firmly. “Even as iron is not mixed with clay.” Iron and clay can be pressed together, but they stay two things and come apart easily. Every effort at union in this last stage fails to make the kingdom one.

“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom.” Daniel now explains the stone. Its origin is “the God of heaven”, the same God who gave Nebuchadnezzar his kingdom, and he sets this kingdom up himself. It “shall never be destroyed”. The verb chăbal means to ruin or harm, so nothing will bring this kingdom to ruin.

“And the kingdom shall not be left to other people.” Each kingdom of the image passed from one people to another, from Babylon to the Medes and Persians, from them to the Greeks, and from the Greeks to Rome. This one stays in the hands of the one who set it up. “But it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms”, with dᵉqaq once more, “and it shall stand for ever.”

Daniel saw the same kingdom again in a later vision, given to one like the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven: “his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13–14). Isaiah promised a child born to the house of David of whose government and peace “there shall be no end” (Isaiah 9:6–7). The angel told Mary that her son would reign over the house of Jacob for ever, “and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32–33).

The New Testament shows us who the stone is. Jesus took the words of the psalm, “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner” (Psalm 118:22), and applied them to himself (Matthew 21:42). Then he added words that echo this dream: “And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder” (Matthew 21:44). Peter preached the same stone to the rulers of Jerusalem (Acts 4:11) and wrote of Christ as the living stone, chosen of God and precious (1 Peter 2:4–8). God had promised through Isaiah, “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation” (Isaiah 28:16), and Paul says that the church is built on the apostles and prophets, “Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:20).

“Without hands” fits him and his kingdom. His conception was the work of the Holy Ghost (Luke 1:35), and he said before Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). His kingdom advances by the gospel and the Spirit, and “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17). At the cross he spoiled principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15). “For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:24–25), and believers receive “a kingdom which cannot be moved” (Hebrews 12:28).

The iron and clay could not cleave, but Christ makes one people out of many. God purposes to “gather together in one all things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10), and through the blood of his cross to reconcile all things to himself (Colossians 1:20). Christ “hath broken down the middle wall of partition” between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14), so that in him “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Galatians 3:28) and “Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11). The unity the last kingdom of the image grasps after through marriages and treaties is given in Christ, “and by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17).

Nebuchadnezzar was a king of kings because God gave him a kingdom for a time. Christ bears that title for ever: “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16). The Father has given the Son to have life in himself and authority to execute judgment (John 5:26–27), and after his resurrection Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). All things were created by him and for him (Colossians 1:16). God has set him far above all principality and power and put all things under his feet (Ephesians 1:20–22), and at his name every knee shall bow (Philippians 2:9–11). Nebuchadnezzar ruled the beasts and the birds within his realm, and Christ rules over all creation.

Verse 45 sums up. “Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands”, with gᵉzar and lâʼ yad again, “and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold”. The mountain the stone was cut from has been read in two ways, as the world order out of which God’s kingdom emerges, or as the realm of God himself from which his power goes out. Either way, the stone’s origin is in God’s hand alone.

“The great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter.” “The great God” joins ʼĕlâhh, God, with rab, great or abundant. Daniel claims nothing for himself. God alone knows the future and tells it, as he says through Isaiah: “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning... My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9–10).

“And the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.” “Certain” is yatstsîyb, fixed or sure, something that will stand. “Sure” is ʼăman, which means to be firm or faithful, to be true or certain, and also to trust or believe. It is a different verb from ʼămar, the “tell” of verse 36. The two words together put a seal on the prophecy. The king could rely on what he had heard, and so can every reader since, because the kingdoms of gold, silver, brass and iron have come and gone as Daniel said.

This dream was given to a pagan king at the height of his power, and the first thing it told him was that his power was a gift. That is true of every throne since. The passage gives us a sober view of the kingdoms of this world. They shine and they frighten, they rise and are replaced, and the strongest of them crush others until they are crushed themselves. Even the last of them, with all its alliances, cannot make iron cleave to clay.

It also shows us who God is. He sees the whole course of history at once and tells it before it happens. He gives kingdoms to whomsoever he will. And he has a kingdom of his own, which no human hand built and no other people will inherit, and which will fill the whole earth. Its King is the stone the builders refused, whom God has made the head of the corner.

So when the powers of our own day look bright or terrible, Daniel 2 lets us see them as Nebuchadnezzar saw the image, standing for a time and then gone like chaff from the summer threshingfloor. Those who belong to Christ have received a kingdom which cannot be moved, and the word about it is certain and sure.