These same four world-ruling Gentile kingdoms are described in the second chapter of Daniel.
King Nebuchadnezzar of the Chaldean Empire, who had taken the Jews captive, had a dream,
the meaning of which God revealed to Daniel.
The king saw a great image. Its head was of gold, its breast and arms of silver, its belly
and thighs of brass, its legs of iron and its feet and toes were part iron and part clay.
Finally, a stone, not in men’s hands, but supernaturally, smote the image upon his feet and toes.
It was broken in pieces and was blown away like chaff. Then the stone that smashed it became
a great mountain and filled the whole Earth.
“This,” Daniel says, beginning verse 36, “is the dream;
and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.”
“… Thou art this head of gold. And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee,
and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.
And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth
all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise” (verses 38-40).
-The interpretation of the stone smashing the image at its toes is found in the 44th verse:
“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never
be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces
and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”
The Stone is Christ and His world-ruling Kingdom. The interpretation of the stone is given many
places in the Bible. “Jesus Christ of Nazareth … is the stone which was set at nought of you builders,
which is become the head of the corner” (Acts 4:10-11).
And so we see that here are four universal [world-ruling] Gentile kingdoms.
They begin with the Chaldean Empire, which took the Jews captive to Babylon.
-God had promised ancient Israel that if they would keep His commandments, to be His nation,
they would grow into a multitude of nations—or an empire—that would dominate the entire Earth.
But, for disobedience they would have to be taken captive by Gentile nations (Leviticus 26 and
other prophecies). Ancient Israel had been tried through the generations and centuries.
They had disobeyed. Now they had been taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, who had raised up the
world’s first empire. But as God revealed through Daniel in chapter 2, it was God who had turned
world dominion over to this succession of Gentile empires.
They continue through four great universal kingdoms, and out of the fourth grow 10 succeeding
governments. These carry to the time of the Second Coming of Christ and the setting up of
the Kingdom of God to fill the whole Earth and last forever.