The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

II. Historical Background of Daniel’s Prophetic Symbolism

1. ROYAL DREAM OF THE METAL COLOSSUS

A study of the Babylonian religious beliefs current in Nebuchadnezzar’s day shows that the symbolism of the great image (Daniel 2) was peculiarly appropriate for conveying the message of God to the royal auditor in understandable terms of the time. The youthful Daniel explained to the king that God had honored him with a far—reaching vista of the future destiny of nations; that the veil hiding the unknown was lifted to show “what should come to pass hereafter.” PFF1 37.3

Picture 1: THE GREAT PROPHETIC DRAMA IN THREE MAJOR ACTS
THE DIVINE OUTLINE OF PROPHECY-GOD’S ADVANCE HISTORY OF THE WORLD
Act 1. Predicted sequence of the nations
The prophesied four world powers, in succession, symbolized by Daniels’ metallic man, are followed by Daniel’s metallic man, are followed by the divided kingdoms of the latter days.
Act 2. Final shattering of all nations
The crash of all nations takes place as the stone smites the image upon the feet and toes, accomplished through divine intervention, not human endeavor.
Act 3. Eternal kingdom of god
The everlasting kingdom, establihed as the stone becomes the mountain that stands forever, succeeds all earthly powers-the eternal home of the saints.
Page 39

In the dream a huge colossus of a man seemed to stand before the king, scintillating in the sunlight. The head was of glittering gold, the breast and arms were of shining silver, the waist and thighs of glowing brass, the legs pillars of dull iron, with the feet of mingled iron and clay. Then a mystic stone, cut out of a mountain without human agency, and self—propelled, struck the image upon the feet, grinding the colossus to powder, which the great wind carried away like chaff. But the stone itself “became a great mountain and filled the earth.” PFF1 39.1

These four metallic divisions, Daniel plainly declared, signified four consecutive world powers beginning with Nebuchadnezzar’s empire. And back of these four empires God’s hand was disclosed, amid the scenes, working out His divine purpose through the course of history. Like the metals, each succeeding kingdom was less magnificent but stronger than the preceding, until the iron and brittle clay—the mixture of strong and weak divisions of the fourth empire—refused to cohere. Then the stone—a new power from without, not originated by man—smote those divided kingdoms with sudden violence and shattered the whole, ending man’s rule and making way for God’s eternal kingdom, which supersedes it. That was the prophetic picture. (Artist’s representation on page 38.) PFF1 39.2

2. NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S RELIGION

The symbolism explained by Daniel—the metals, the stone, the mountain, and the wind which blows away the fragments—was highly significant to Nebuchadnezzar and his court in the light of certain aspects of Babylonian religion. It is impossible to say that Daniel’s various symbols meant exactly this or that to his hearers, for the later Babylonian mythology (or theology, from their point of view), modified from that of the early non—Semitic Sumerians, was extremely complex, and differing at various places. But when we consider Nebuchadnezzar’s worship of the Babylonian god Bel—Marduk (the Biblical Merodach) as the supreme deity and the source of his kingly authority, we see that the symbolism of the dream must have been exceedingly significant, as he listened to Daniel’s explanation of the awesome metal image—which probably seemed to the pious king to represent a god—shattered to bits by a mystic stone and blown away by the wind. Obviously God seized upon the well—known symbolism of the day to convey to a pagan king the tremendous truths of the coming kingdom of heaven, revealed through the prophet Daniel. ⁴ PFF1 39.3

3. THE FUTILITY OF THE BABYLONIAN GODS

“There is a God in heaven,” said Daniel, “that revealeth secrets.” (Daniel 2:28.) Nebuchadnezzar knew the god Nabu ⁵ as the patron of wisdom, the revealer of secrets, and the messenger of the gods, recorder of the destinies of mankind on the Tablets of Fate; yet Marduk himself, the keeper of the Tablets, presided over the council of the gods every New Year, when the fates were determined. ⁶ Why, then, could not the wise men of Babylon, the servants of Marduk, or of his son Nabu, tell the king what this captive Hebrew youth could reveal? Was Marduk not as powerful as Daniel’s God? PFF1 40.1

“The God of heaven,” continued Daniel, “hath given thee a kingdom.” Daniel 2:37. Nebuchadnezzar believed that Bel—Marduk had done this. Had not he himself every year, during the eleven—day New Year’s festival, received from Bel his divine authority to rule as a faithful vassal of the god? ⁷ PFF1 40.2

4. BABYLON—FITLY CALLED THE GOLDEN KINGDOM

“Thou art this head of gold.” Certainly that pleased Nebuchadnezzar, and it must have seemed to him an eminently suitable symbol—that of headship and dazzling splendor. In this second year of his reign he was possibly only planning the work, but his lavish building program of the palace and temple areas eventually remade Babylon into a worthy capital of the golden age of a great civilization. He added to, if he did not indeed introduce, the lavish use of gold in the sanctuaries, which was possibly responsible for the use of the very adjective “golden” by the contemporary Jewish prophet Jeremiah. (Jeremiah 51:7; see also Isaiah 14:4). A century and a half later the Greek poet Aeschylus (d. 456 B.C.), similarly wrote of Babylon as “teeming with gold,” and Herodotus (d. c. 424 B.C.) was amazed at the lavishness of the gold within the sanctuary of Bel—Marduk. ⁸ PFF1 41.1

Nebuchadnezzar declared, in one of his own inscriptions, that nothing was too precious to be bestowed upon his beloved Babylon. ⁹ Fitly, then, did the symbolic head of gold stand for Babylon, the glittering head of the prophetic pageant of nations from Nebuchadnezzar’s day onward. PFF1 41.2

5. PERSIA—APPROPRIATELY REPRESENTED BY THE SILVER

There is no evidence that Nebuchadnezzar saw any indication of the identity of the silver kingdom as the Persian Empire. Daniel probably never named the Medes and Persians as the successors of Babylon until he read the handwriting on the wall, the night before Babylon fell (Daniel 5:28), years after Nebuchadnezzar’s death. Yet the future Persian Empire, as Boutflower points out, may be most appropriately represented by silver, in the sense of “money”—the criterion of value and medium of exchange employed in Persia—the money of the realm. Babylon’s ornamental golden magnificence was displaced by Persian treasures, collected by systematic taxation. The Persian kings were bent on raising money, and exacted tribute from their subject states, paid mostly in silver talents. ¹⁰ The Persians were more renowned for wealth than for magnificence; the fourth king was to be “far richer than they all,” and through his riches was to “stir up all against the realm of Grecia” ¹¹ (Daniel 11:2), said Daniel shortly after the fall of Babylon. PFF1 41.3

6. BRAZEN—COATED GREEKS CONSTITUTE THIRD EMPIRE

Nebuchadnezzar was, in all probability, already acquainted with Greeks—representatives of the coming world power symbolized by the brass (or bronze) following Persia—the empire of Alexander and his brazen—clad Greeks, or “another king from the west, clad in bronze,” as Josephus aptly phrases it. ¹² The Greek armor was in noticeable contrast to the soft hats, sleeved tunics, and trousers of the Median and Persian soldiers. And Ezekiel’s reference to Javan’s “vessels of brass” (Ezekiel 27:13) takes on new significance when “Javan” is seen to mean the Ionian Greeks, and the “vessels,” the equipment or armor of soldiers. ¹³ PFF1 42.1

Herodotus tells a story of Psammetichus I of Egypt, an older contemporary of Nebuchadnezzar’s father, which indicates widespread knowledge of the Greeks as noted for their bronze armor. Psammetichus was told by an oracle that he would have vengeance on his enemies “when he saw men of bronze coming from the sea.” This he regarded as fulfilled when the news came that “men of bronze”,—actually armed Greek pirates—had landed in Egypt and were foraging along the coast. Enlisting their aid Psammetichus won control of all Egypt, and settled his allies on the land. ¹⁴ PFF1 42.2

7. ROME—THE “IRON MONARCHY”

Though it is possible that Nebuchadnezzar saw bronze—clad Greeks in his western campaigns, it is not to be expected that he would recognize the next metal, iron, for the world power which succeeded that of Alexander was only an infant city—state in the sixth century B.C. By the time Roman military strength showed the fitness of iron as a vivid description of Rome’s basic characteristic, bronze weapons were already sung of by Roman poets as belonging to olden times. The distinctive Roman weapon was the iron—headed pilum (the pike, or javelin). But the chief characteristic which later made both Jews and Christians identify iron with Rome was its superior strength. Daniel’s phrase is: “strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things.” Daniel 2:40. ¹⁵ PFF1 43.1

8. SEQUENCE OF METALS NOTED BY OTHER NATIONS

The choice and sequence of these four particular metals was not without definite significance in Nebuchadnezzar’s day. The same series of gold, silver, bronze, and iron had long before been enumerated on the great triumphal inscription of Sargon II, ¹⁶ and it was employed about the same time in Greece by Hesiod in designating (with the addition of “demigods” or heroes after bronze) the consecutive ages of man. ¹⁷ Also a Babylonian tablet names Enlil—a prototype, it will be remembered, of Marduk—as the god of gold, and Anu and Ea the gods of silver and brass respectively; ¹⁸ and in Ninib, god of strength, ¹⁹ Boutflower finds evidence pointing to identification with the god of iron. ²⁰ PFF1 43.2