■The Dream of Nebuchadnezzar #1

This time and at the following lessons, I would talk about how God had specifically revealed the things to be happened in the future through the Book of Daniel.
　

According to the second chapter of the Book of Daniel, the prophet, having received the God's revelation, interpreted the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar.

The Book of Daniel 2:32-35:

This image’s head was of fine 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 clay. You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

This part of the Scripture tells about Babylonian Empire and the other empires which arose in the region after Babylon.

The image's head Nebuchadnezzar saw in the dream represented Baylon and the Bible said it was of fine gold. As a matter of fact, another name of Marduk, the national god of Babylon was the god of the gold. It was also known that abundant gold metal were used for the buildings in Babylon.

The next empire after Babylon was described as a chest and arms of silver. Two human organs were regarded as one unit, which meant that two countries became one united empire. Actually two empires, Media and Persia became one united force called Medo-Persia in BC 539. which ruined Babylon in the same year. Silver meant currency at that time and Medo-Persia was no doubt a great economic power in the region.

The third empire was described as belly and thighs of bronze. Daniel said here that from one country, two different countries came out. The Greek Empire, which destroyed Medo-Persia in BC 331, rapidly expanded its territory under Alexander the Great. But after his death, the conquered territory quickly split into two countries.The bronze was the metal that Greek army used to produce weapons.

The 4th empire was represented by legs. As humans have a pair of legs, so was this empire built across the two vast regions with different nature.The Roman destroyed Greek Empire in BC146 and became huge unified state. Western half of it was the territory with Rome as central city, and estern half was the area under the Greek influence.The Bible said that legs were of iron. Roman army was equipped with weapons made of iron. As iron was much stronger than other metals like gold, silver and copper, it was much stronger than any other preceeding armies.

The Bible said that image's feet were partly clay and partly iron. As this part of the Book of Daniel includes very significant message, I would talk about it at the next lesson. ---to be continued./font>

September,2008