Daniel 2:43, commentary and pictures

The iron mixed with miry clay is a divided kingdom that holds both strength and weakness, fulfilled when Rome was broken into divisions by invasions from the north and east. Its parts mingle themselves with the seed of men by intermarriage and human alliances, yet they do not cleave together any more than iron bonds with clay, so that every effort to reunite them by marriage, force or diplomacy fails. The prophecy has been fulfilled with wonderful exactness in history, giving proof of inspiration and an anchor for faith. It shows that Jehovah rules over earthly kingdoms, removing kings and setting up kings, while temporal powers pass away and God's kingdom alone endures forever and fills the whole earth. The iron and the clay also mean the mingling of churchcraft and statecraft in the present time, when statesmen join religious observance of the spurious Sabbath with the power of the state above the seventh-day Sabbath, a union that weakens the churches and brings evil results. The kingdoms decreased in value and power just in proportion as they forgot God and made void His law, sinking lower through wickedness and corruption.

Image Words and Divisions

The iron mixed with miry clay is a divided kingdom that holds both strength and weakness within itself. It stands at the end of a line of four world-shaping empires beginning with Babylon, whose kingdom as head of gold was given by God to Nebuchadnezzar. After Babylon came the breast and arms of silver for Medo-Persia, then the sides of brass for the next kingdom, then the feet and toes of iron mingled with clay. From head to feet the metals grow less pure and valuable, showing decreasing value in the kingdoms they represent.

The iron kingdom of Rome crumbled into pieces and was broken into divisions. Those divisions arose through barbarian incursions from northern and eastern Europe in the fourth century. The mixture of strong iron with weak miry clay marks that divided stage.

Its parts mingle themselves with the seed of men through intermarriage and other human alliances and ties. Yet they do not unite securely or cleave together, just as iron does not bond, combine, or hold together with clay. The divided, crumbling powers of the toes therefore never form a lasting union.

Efforts to reunite the divisions through intermarriage, force, or diplomacy would fail. Charlemagne's and Napoleon's attempts to build a united kingdom failed. The prophecy's words that they would not cleave together are stronger than diplomacy or force of arms.

Prophecy Fulfilled With Exactness

The prophecy of Daniel 2, including the mingling that does not cleave, has been fulfilled with wonderful exactness as seen in the record of ancient history in the most literal manner. That exact fulfillment gives testimony to the inspiration of the Scriptures and an anchor for faith amid rationalism and skepticism. Contrary to the popular belief that Daniel is an unintelligible mystery that cannot be understood, its meaning can be presented in familiar form. Even children listen with pleasure and interest, understand and explain it, and through them parents and grown people, including men of rank and learning, are drawn to study it.

Its exact fulfillment gives solemnity and importance to the truth that the coming of the Lord is at hand, a truth that must be brought before the people. It belongs to a connected chain of prophecy leading to the second coming of Christ. When this fulfillment in the rise and fall of kingdoms is shown together with the signs of the times, it gives tangibility to faith and makes a deep impression on those who have been interested in prophecy but have had no definite idea of its fulfillment.

The prophecy figuratively sets out events in their historical order in symbols that foretell world history through the close of time and the close of earth's history. Its prophetic waymarks must be guarded from false applications and interpretations that create confusion. Daniel's visions were given especially for the last days, and their foretold events were in process of fulfillment.

God Rules Over Kingdoms

Under dictation of the Holy Spirit Daniel traced hundreds of years beforehand the history of peoples before they came upon the stage of action. In that succession Babylon after its day was superseded, a second kingdom was given its period and faded, a third occupied its place and passed away, and a fourth strong as iron subdued the nations of the world. The interpretation given to Nebuchadnezzar of the dream of the great image thus lays out kingdoms that rise and fall in their order.

It shows that Jehovah rules over earthly kingdoms and is more powerful than their rulers. He changes the times and the seasons and removes kings and sets up kings to fulfil His own purpose. This was made known through Daniel to idolatrous Babylon, that the God of heaven is Ruler over all monarchs and kings of earth, God over all gods, and that earthly rulers have a Ruler in heaven.

Each nation and kingdom represented had a period of testing and trial whether it would honor and exalt the one Ruler, the only true God, by obedience. When proved by obedience or disobedience and failing, its glory and power passed away and it gave way to another. That history shows God humbling human pride and bringing human glory to nothing.

Earthly kingdoms are temporal and will pass away and not endure. Babylon, though then universal, would fall and be followed by other earthly kingdoms, with Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom given by God as the head of gold for His glory. In the end God's kingdom and Christ's kingdom alone will supersede every earthly power, never be destroyed or pass away, and fill the whole earth as the kingdom of the Prince of heaven.

The prophecy declares the character of Christ's kingdom to uplift and ennoble fallen humanity, banishing every carnal weapon and instrument of coercion, with the Lamb as the ensign of the Messiah's kingdom. It is the kingdom the Lord was to establish and by His power maintain against all the power and craft of Satan, while earthly kingdoms rule by ascendancy of physical power. This light shines to faithful watchmen in these last days, calling God's people with the accumulated light of centuries to shine more brightly.

Moral Decline Forgetting God

The successive kingdoms shown in the great image were represented by increasingly baser metals to show that nations would decrease in value as they separated further from God and cast off allegiance to Him. Forgetting God brought a continuing decline in moral value and in power and glory. Moral and spiritual weakness grows just in proportion as God is forgotten, and the image represents that declining religion and morality among their peoples.

The result of making void the law of God is seen in the immorality of these kingdoms, whose metals become less and less pure and valuable from head to feet. They lost the wisdom and power that would have bound them together and kept them strong through the fear of the Lord. Their rulers made God their strength only when harassed and perplexed, and separated themselves from Him by transgression. Disobedience to the law of God brings humiliation and testing and the penalty of transgression.

Babylon passed away because in prosperity her rulers forgot God and ascribed honor and glory to human achievement. Medo-Persia was visited by wrath because God's law was trampled underfoot and wickedness, blasphemy and corruption prevailed. The kingdoms that followed were even more base and corrupt, sinking lower and lower in moral value by casting God off and giving themselves to wickedness, blasphemy and corruption.

The same iron-and-clay mixture also fitly represents deterioration of religion. It is seen in the church of Rome boasting infallibility while keeping people in ignorance of the will of God. It is seen in Protestants leaving the old landmarks and depending on forms, ceremonies and outward display instead of purity, piety, meekness and obedience. So sin is ruining nations today as in the past.

Church State Union Today

The iron and the clay are the mingling of churchcraft and statecraft, the union of the church with the power of the state by investing the church with the power of the state. The feet of the image where iron was mixed with miry clay are fulfilled in the present time. In that present time God's sacred work is represented by those feet.

Statesmen uphold the spurious sabbath, the child of the papacy, mingling their religious faith with its observance and placing it above the seventh-day Sabbath which the Lord sanctified and blessed and set apart to be kept holy as a sign between Himself and His people. Men have invested their strength in politics and united with the papacy and have almost passed the point of God's forbearance. If the government honored the Sabbath as God commanded it would stand in the strength of God in defense of the faith. This union weakens all the power of the churches and will bring evil results. The time will come when God will punish those who have made void His law, and their evil work will recoil upon themselves.

Loyalty to the commandments of God and the seventh-day Sabbath is the distinguishing feature of true faith in this time. That iron and clay do not cleave pictures the impossibility of mingling heathen religion and error with true Bible religion. The wise men of Babylon wanted to benefit from the instruction God gave through Daniel yet mix their heathen religion with that of the Hebrews, and had Daniel and his three companions consented to such compromise they would have been counted complete as statesmen fit to be entrusted with the affairs of the kingdom. The four Hebrews entered into no such arrangement but stayed true to God, and God upheld and honored them. So students should learn all they can but as a rule be educated in their own institutions, not seeking greater advantage by mingling with those who do not seek wisdom from God where error is taught, but seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness with all other things added.

How Prophecy Was Given

The dream was withheld from the wise men so that they could not use their claimed understanding of mysteries to give it a false interpretation, and their inability to revive it stands for learned people today who lack discernment and knowledge from God and therefore cannot understand the prophecies. The historical events of the dream mattered to the king, while its lessons were given by God for people living in the present day.

After giving the dream to Nebuchadnezzar, God first silenced the wise men of Babylon by placing them where they had to acknowledge their inability to revive the forgotten dream in the king's mind. This was done to show human wisdom to be folly and the inefficiency of scientific power so that man may not glory in wisdom, and to show the superior wisdom of worshippers who reveal the divine science of eternity to lead princes and people from broken cisterns to the living fountain. The opening of the treasures of eternity was given not to those charmed by Babylon's splendor but to the Hebrew captives who felt themselves exiles in a strange land with God as their only dependence, and the same opening is given to those who refuse to be charmed by things of time and sense and who come out separate while faithfully performing assigned duties.

Through the symbolic image God revealed future events affecting the nations to make His purposes known, yet its interpretation could be rejected, misapplied, and used to promote human power instead of spreading God's truth. By providence God incessantly works over human affairs and in reasoning relation with human minds, even idolatrous minds, to give light, and by this interpretation Jehovah is exalted as more powerful than any earthly kingdom. Daniel did his assigned work as statesman in a most critical and trying position while plainly refusing any work against God, and he interpreted the dream in the light of the Scriptures. All, whether king or subjects, must read Scripture and providence not in the light of dreams but must read dreams in the light of the living Oracles.

Daniel explained the dream from Scripture as prophecy concerning Babylon and other kingdoms. God used such visual symbols in prophetic history to teach lessons that could be understood more clearly, and they were to be displayed plainly so readers could understand them. Nebuchadnezzar perverted the light by reading the interpretation in accordance with his own idolatrous mind, ambitions, and human understanding. This led to setting up a golden image in the plain of Dura, modeled on the one in his dream and representing the glory of Babylon and more particularly the king himself, with the hope and supposition of converting all nations to its worship. The fall of Babylon came at an hour of feasting and revelling.