“Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure 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 baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth. “This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. Daniel 2:31-36 (NIV).
My Concordia reference Bible explains that the layers of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue represent the empires that came to rule the known world after Babylon. This is also teaching I’d learned years ago, in a WELS church in Colorado.
The head of gold represented Babylon, with the next layer being the empire after Babylon, specifically the Medo-Persian empire. Then came Greece, then Rome. Some people also believe that the final empire, represented by the toes of the statue, represents a modern empire today.
The Bible reference also says, “the diminishing value of the metals from gold to silver to bronze to iron represents the decreasing power and grandeur of the rulers of the successive empires…The metals also symbolize a growing degree of toughness and endurance, with each successive empire lasting longer than the preceding one.”
So, there you have it.
It’s miraculous that Daniel was able to interpret all of this. It was a miracle from God. In the verses to come, Daniel will further explain the meaning of the statue, and the dream, and he’ll do so bluntly and earnestly. In doing that, he will preach the good news of Jesus to a pagan ruler nearly seven centuries before Christ.
And Daniel was just a slave. He didn’t have a Concordia to help him. Or the internet, or archaeology, or trained pastors and church leaders and deep analysis of spiritual matters. All Daniel had was God, and God was more than enough to do what needed to be done.
So, there you have it again. Tell me: what’s stopping us? We have God and both of His testaments. What’s in our way? Where can we ask for God’s help today? So, there you have it indeed.
For further reading: Genesis 40:12, Job 12:19, Psalm 1:4, Isaiah 23:3-5, Micah 4:1, Habbakuk 1:7, Zechariah 4:6, Daniel 2:37
Lord Jesus, thank You for the revelation to Daniel of the coming history of his time, and the kingdom only You would establish.
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Practical Proverbs 