Here are some questions I might ask my Sabbath School class to help them begin discussing this week's lesson:

1. What five kingdoms are brought to view in Daniel 2 and what characteristics can you name about each kingdom?

2. Why does each description fit only one kingdom and not several kingdoms?

3. What encouragement do you get from this panoramic view of earth's history?

The first kingdom, although not specifically named, is obviously Babylon. What made Babylon so much better than the following kingdoms is unknown to me. Maybe there was a lot of gold and wealth to pass around to the people. It wasn't exactly a world-wide kingdom, as far as I know, unless it represented some common principle or time period.

The other kingdoms are not named, either.

The presence of iron in the 4th kingdom indicates destruction, just as the Child with the Iron Rod described in Dan 7 is destined to destroy everything evil and everyone embracing it.

Clay is not exactly a precious material, nor is it very useful as a weapon of war. It might indicate either peaceful nations or people not interested in conquest and destruction, or, poor, undeveloped nations incapable of participating in major wars.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but the ten toes could refer to Satan's kingdom just prior to its destruction at the Return of the Messiah, if the statue is a sequential timeline of history.

The Iron and Clay Kingdom is destroyed twice, first at the 2nd Coming of Jesus. A thousand years later, all 4 of the kingdoms will reappear as a result of the resurrection of the wicked dead. After one more war of conquest to overpower the defenses of the new Jerusalem, all 4 kingdoms are destroyed by the power of God.

Following their destruction, the invincible Kingdom of God rules the world, forever.

Since God obviously knows the future, perhaps he is a time traveler who has given us a little information on major future events involving world history. Then we can believe God's words are true, even though human logic can prove them wrong.

This mixture of iron and clay is not homogeneous, but rather, is heterogeneous, that is, clumpy. (I recently helped my daughter with some homework in organic chemistry, wich mentioned this concept.)

The clay could actually refer to a group of peoples with another religion who do not mix at all with the Iron People. One of the Clay People may even be bloodthirsty enough to kill three of their own in order to rise to power. Sounds more like something the Destructo Iron People would do, though.

The Little Big Horn is so nasty that it kills, or at least tries to kill, God's People, if they are the Holy (Ones) so indicated. The verse could read angel or saint. What if the Clay People and the Iron People were Christians and Muslims?

The Clay People and the Iron People don't get along very well, either, so their union doesn't last very long.

Notice that the statue is topheavy:

The specific gravity of metals.


gcw

I'm beginning to think that the assignment of various metals to empires was not related to the worth of the empires. Why were the successive kingdoms valued less than their predecessors? All four kingdoms were founded on bloodshed and destruction.

Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was not exactly a reasonable person at times: Daniel was thrown in the Lion's Den because of the king's new law, Death was decreed for the Magicians, Enchanters, etc. unless they told the king his dream and what it meant, Death Penalty was enforced for those who refused to bow down and worship his golden statue.

Maybe inferior just meant "under" or "below", refering to their position on the Statue of Time.

The stone that struck the time-line statue was symbolizing Jesus. His destiny was to destroy every trace of human existence on the Earth. All that would remain of Earth's history would be the ashes under the feet of the next generation of humans.

His destiny was also to rule the Restored Kingdom of New Earth, a kingdom united to serve God and meet the needs of others.

The mountian motif is no coincidence, for that is what his city, Zion, is, a city within a "mountain".

I apologize, in my previous post, for attributing Daniel's Lion's Den experience to Nebuchadnezzar instead of Darius.

Quote:

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-- New King James
Daniel 2:28 "But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed, were these:

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Quote:

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-- New Jerusalem with Apocrypha
Daniel 2:28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries and who has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what is to take place in the final days. These, then, are the dream and the visions that passed through your head as you lay in bed:

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This verse indicates that the entire statue of 4 Kingdoms exists at some point in the Final Days of Earth's history. Following its destruction, there is nothing left but the lifeless ruins of Earth's troubled existence.

There were several empires that conquered and dominated Israel throughout its history before and after Babylon and Greece, only 3 of which were included in Daniel's vision. Events/Kingdoms occurring in the near future of this dream are used to identify some of the players in Earth's Final Days.

Preceeding the Babylonian Empire was the Assyrian Empire, also occupying the territory of Israel and Judah. Both were smaller than the Greek and Roman Empires.

The Babylonian, Medo-Persian, and Greek Empires, none of which covered a very large territory, were all located in relatively small areas adjacent to, or surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.

Many years after the Roman Empire's occupation of Israel, the Ottoman Empire also conquered the Holy Land.

I suppose the stone launched from the mountain/starship could also represent a missile or some other weapon sent to destroy the wicked, resurrected dead, including all traces of human existence on our world. Following the purging of the entire planet, the Restored Kingdom of New Earth is established, with Christ as our eternal Ruler. This new kingdom will occupy the whole Earth and never be replaced.