Daniel Interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream of Four Empires

“This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold. “After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Daniel 2:36-39a

THE HEAD OF GOLD

The head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom the Babylonian Empire. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar the only reason he had been successful in conquering people and nations was that they were given to him by the God of heaven as prophesied by Jeremiah.

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I will put an iron yoke on the necks of all these nations to make them serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him. I will even give him control over the wild animals.’” Jeremiah 28:14

CHEST AND ARMS OF SILVER

While King Nebuchadnezzar was a supreme unrestricted ruler, the Medo-Persian Empire which followed was inferior in the fact that it was a limited monarchy where the ruling kings were bound by the laws they enacted.

BELLY AND THIGHS OF BRONZE

Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Daniel 2:39b

The third kingdom, the Greek Empire, did begin an absolute monarchy with Alexander the Great, but upon his death his kingdom was divided. The Diadochi (from Greek: Διάδοχοι, Diadokhoi, meaning “Successors”) were the rival generals, families and friends of Alexander the Great who fought for control over his empire.

The Greek Empire split into four main kingdoms. In relation to Israel, Seleucus ruled in the north in Syria and Iran, while Ptolemy ruled to the south in Egypt. Lysimachus ruled in Thrace, which was the land that bridged Macedonia and Asia, while Cassander ruled in the west in Macedonia including Greece.

In time the Greek Empire developed into a democracy and there was no longer a monarchy. Therefore in terms of rulership, the third kingdom of Greece was inferior to that of the Medes and the Persians, whose empire was inferior to that of King Nebuchadnezzar.

LEGS OF IRON

Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay. Daniel 2:40-43

The fourth kingdom is symbolized by iron. History tells us that this is the Roman Empire which conquered Greece. The first three kingdoms existed in Daniel's day, but Rome did not. So Daniel did not identify it directly by name. Rome was known as the “Iron Monarchy.” The Latin word “Rome” means strength and iron is the strongest of the metals.

The two legs have a prophetic meaning. Rome was always a nation of two divisions. When Jerusalem was captured, Rome was ruled by the dominant two triumvirates. The two legs of iron represent the northern and southern divisions of Rome as it conquered each Greek division. Politically, Israel was ruled by two ruling dynasties, the Caesars and the Herodians who were appointed by Rome. Geographically, it later became the Western and Eastern (Byzantine) empire as it declined. The western leg ruled the Christians and the eastern leg ruled the Jews. Religiously, it had two phases: these are Pagan Rome and Papal Rome.

The dream specified that the fourth kingdom would be a divided kingdom. This took place in 395 A.D. after the death of the Emperor Theodosius 1 (379-395). The western division headquartered in Rome fell in 476 when Romulus Agustus was forced to abdicate to the Germanic warlord Odoacer. The eastern division (Byzantine Empire) headquartered in Constantinople, Turkey ended in 1453 with the death of Constantine XI and the capture of Constantinople by Mehmed II, the leader of the Ottoman Turks.