Nebuchadnezzar's Dream

[Chad]

Nebuchadnezzar's Dream

During his rule King Nebuchadnezzar was troubled by a nightmare he couldn't understand so he summoned all his astrologers and demanded that they not only interpret the dream, but tell him what the dream was!

The astrologers told the king that there was not a man on earth who could do what the king asked. "No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men."

They certainly had a point but Nebuchadnezzar was not a very reasonable man and gave the order for all of the wise men to be executed. This included Daniel, even though he wasn't present when the order was given. When Daniel heard what was to happen, he asked for an audience with the king and after praying about the dream, was given a staggering revelation of the future!

Nebuchadnezzar had seen a huge metal man in his dream. The man had a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, waist and thighs of bronze, legs of iron and feet of clay — a progressive decrease in value from head to toe and a correspondence increase in brittleness. Daniel went on the interpret the dream for the king.

You, O king, 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 mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

"After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours.

Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth.

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.

"In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. (Daniel 2:37-44)

The head of God was easy enough to understand. The narrative itself said it represented Babylon. History makes the other kingdoms clear. After the Babylonian Empire came the Persian Empire — the chest and arms of silver. They were swallowed up by the Greeks — the belly and thighs of bronze. Then came the Roman Empire — the legs of iron. What is left are the feet of clay, with ten long toes. The European Union?


Article: Holy Spirit Interactive

 

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The ten toes of the king Nebuchadnezzar's image in Daniel 2 represent the same thing as the ten horns on the beast(s) of Daniel 7:24, Revelations 13:1, and Revelations 17:12. Also, the ten horns on the dragon in Revelations12:3 are the same thing.

In Daniel 7:24 it says"And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise." And Revelations 17:12 and 13 say, "And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have recieved no kingdoms as yet; (in John's day) but recieve power as kings one hour (a Short time) with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast." (Revelations 12 and 13 do not talk about what the tens horns represent because they focus on the beast [Revelations 13] itself and the great red dragon [Revelations 12].The beast is the antichrist and the dragon is the devil.)

So, we know that the ten toes and the ten horns are ten nations who collaborate with the antichrist to take over the world during this endtime period, right before Jesus comes back.

Back in the 70's we used to theorize that these ten nations are ten nations of the europeon union. But personnally I'm getting away from that interpretation. First of all let's look at the ten toes of the image in Daniel 2. The two thighs of iron represent the iron tough dictatorship of the Roman empire and how they clamped down on the whole known world with their military might. Ever since the breakup of the Roman empire the whole world has been a mixture of iron tough dictatorships and softer democratic type governments where the officials are elected by the people, or the clay. "Thou art the potter and we are the clay". So, during this endtime period we have a mixture of iron and clay governments, as it says in Daniel 7:43 "And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay."

So, the ten nations who give their heart and soul to the antichrist are going to be a mixture of iron dictatorships and clay democracies, but this doesn't mean they will all be uniting with one army under the antichrist. Each country will keep their own army with their own individual military leaders and the antichrist will be the supreme leader of them all. -"they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay"

So, back to your question: Do the ten toes of the image in Daniel 2 represent the ten nations of the europeon Union? I believe the answer to that question is NO, based on 3 reasons which I will list below.

Reason #1: It seems pretty clear that the ten nations are a mixture of Iron dictatorships and clay democracies. Every single one of the nations of the Europeon Union have democratically elected governments. I don't think that there is a single one that could be considered an iron tough dictatorship. I can see the Europeon Union being one of the ten toes, but I don't see all the ten toes coming from western Europe.

Reason #2uring the wrath of God the sixth vial is poored out on the river Euphrates: "And the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw 3 unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, (the devil) and out of the mouth of the beast, (the antichrist) and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God almighty. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armegeddon. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered to make war against Him that sat on the horse (Jesus) and against His army." (Revelations 16:12-14 and 16 and Revelations 19:19)So what we see here is that during the wrath of God on the antichrist and the rest of the wicked who are left on the earth after Jesus resurrects and raptures his children, the antichrist and the devil and the false prophet get so frustrated and angry and enraged at Jesus for Judging them and punishing them with all these calamities that they call (This is represented by the fact that the 3 evil spirits come out of their mouths) all of the armies of all the nations that give their heart and soul to him (The antichrist) and gather them together in the valley of Megiddo (Amageddon) to try and shoot Jesus and his followers out of the sky with their armaments and guns and bullets and missiles and choppers and planes etc. And in Revelations 16:12 it says that these kings and their armies come from the east, not the west. So, I'm more inclined to believe that the ten toes of the image in Daniel 2 are eastern nations, not western. My theory is that these would include china, North Korea, Russia and India amoung others. This does not necessarily mean that all 10 nations will be eastern nations. As I said before, the Europeon Union could be one of these ten nations.

Reason#3:"Loose the 4 angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the 4 angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month and a year, for to slay the third part of men.And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: (200,000,000) and I heard the number of them." (Revelations 9:14-16) 200,000,000 foot soldiers is a lot of people, considering that all of the soldiers from both axis and allied forces who fought in world war II was less than 100,000,000. Personnally, I don't believe these 200,000,000 soldiers are going to be conjured up by the Lord out of thin air, nor that they came up out of a bottomless pit as the scorpion like creatures did earlier in Revelations 9. Personally I believe that these 200,000,000 soldiers are the armies of the ten nations who give their heart and soul to the antichrist. When the AC is enforcing his iron tough dictatorship on the whole world he will send out his armies to force everyone to take the mark of the beast or be killed. A lot of people won't, including Christians, and this is why a full third of all mankind is killed at this time. So, getting back to the main point: do the 10 toes represent the ten nations of the europeon Union? It's the number of soldiers that I am referring to here. There's simply no way that you can get 200,000,000 soldiers out of the combined armies of western Europe. Some of whom have pretty small armies. But you can get 200,000,000 soldiers out of the combined forces of eastern nations. Even North Korea, as small as it is, is known to have the 5th largest standing army in the world. And some of these eastern nations are the most densely populated countries in the world, as well.

Anyway, sorry this is so long, but I like to give explanatory answers to explain why I'm getting away from the more popular theory that the ten nations who join forces with the AC are only western Europe.