This chapter is the most important Bible prophecy chapter in the whole Bible, in the sense that unless we understand Daniel chapter 2, we will not understand end-time Bible prophecy. On our end time prophecy YouTube channel, you can watch our videos to learn more about Bible prophecy. We talk to so many people — and so many pastors — who are totally confused about end-time prophecy, because they do not understand Daniel chapter 2.
Daniel chapter 7 gives us the antichrist. Daniel 2 has four metals; Daniel 7 has four beasts — it is the same meaning. But in Daniel 7, the antichrist comes out of the fourth beast. So God expands the meaning with each prophecy. If we do not understand Daniel 2, we will not understand who the antichrist is in Daniel 7. Through our end time prophecy YouTube content, we find that the most advanced Bible prophecy chapter is Daniel 11.
Then in Revelation 13, we find the first beast — the same beast found in Daniel 7 — joining with a second beast to enforce the mark of the beast. Unless we understand Daniel 2, we will be totally confused about what the mark of the beast is. After the mark of the beast come the seven last plagues and many other end-time events. It all starts with Daniel chapter 2. Let us study this chapter to build a solid foundation in end-time prophecy. You can watch our video channel here.
Daniel 2:1-3 — “And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him. Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king. And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.” King Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon, and effectively the king of the world. The Bible says that God sets up kings and removes them.
Daniel 2:21 — “And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding.” God can give wicked kings to a people who deserve wicked kings, and God gives good kings to a people who deserve a good king. God wanted to reach the greatest king of his time by giving him a dream.
King Nebuchadnezzar woke up and forgot what the dream was, but he remembered that the dream was very important. Nebuchadnezzar asked all the magicians and so-called holy men of his kingdom to tell him what he had dreamed. End-time prophecy starts with Daniel 2 — the starting point of Bible prophecy.
Daniel 2:4-6 — “Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation. The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill. But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof.” This is no halfway measure from King Nebuchadnezzar. God loves people who are not wishy-washy. God does not favor people who are in between, or lukewarm.
Revelation 3:16 — “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
1 Kings 18:21 — “And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”
James 1:8 — “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Most people in the world never make a total commitment to anything. Most people will never make a great difference in the world. They do not stand fully for what is right, yet they are not fully evil either — they remain in between. People who make a real difference are people who refuse to follow the pattern of this world.
Daniel 2:7-12 — “They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it. The king answered and said, I know of certainty that ye would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from me. But if ye will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you: for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof. The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean. And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.”
King Nebuchadnezzar wanted the magicians to tell him the dream itself. Can you imagine how difficult this is? Someone dreams, and they ask you to tell them what they dreamed? We cannot read thoughts, much less other people’s dreams. The wise men of Babylon said that no one on earth could reveal the king’s matter — only the gods in heaven. They were right, in the sense that only God can reveal secrets, and only God knows everything. End time prophecy teaching shows us the starting point of this revelation, but the magicians were wrong about one crucial fact: there is only one true God.
Daniel 2:13-16 — “And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain. Then Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Arioch the captain of the king’s guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon: He answered and said to Arioch the king’s captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel. Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would shew the king the interpretation.” King Nebuchadnezzar had said that whoever told him the dream would receive honor and great blessings, but whoever could not would be destroyed, along with his house. The problem was that Daniel had been placed among the wise men of Babylon, because the king had found in him great wisdom. We saw in a previous article that God blessed Daniel with great wisdom for following the health message.
Daniel 2:17-19 — “Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions: That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.” The death decree would fall on all the wise men of Babylon if the dream and its interpretation could not be given to Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel went home and prayed, asking God to reveal the dream to him.
Daniel 2:20-23 — “Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king’s matter.” God saw what was happening, and because of Daniel’s faithfulness, He was moved with compassion and saved Daniel from a terrible death. God revealed to Daniel both the dream Nebuchadnezzar had received, and its interpretation.
In fact, God Himself had given the dream to Nebuchadnezzar — He had planned in advance that Nebuchadnezzar would be confronted with the true God and His amazing love for human beings.
Daniel 2:24-28 — “Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation. Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation. The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof? Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these.”
Notice the humility of Daniel. How many people today would speak this way in front of the greatest king on earth? Surely news of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream had spread throughout the world. Yet Daniel did not say, “I can give you the dream.” Daniel said there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets. Humility and honesty are two of the greatest qualities that make someone a true Christian — without humility and honesty, we are Christians in name only, but servants of Satan. This statue had four metals, representing four kingdoms — the same four kingdoms represented by the four beasts of Daniel 7. The antichrist comes from the fourth beast of Daniel 7.
Daniel 2:29-35 — “As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass. But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart. Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.”
An incredible dream — the foundation for Bible prophecy concerning the end times. A great image with four different metals: gold, silver, bronze, iron — then the iron mixed with clay. Then a great stone falls from the sky and destroys the entire image. What does it mean?
Daniel 7:23 — “Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth.” These four metals represent four kingdoms, or four nations and their kings — just as the four beasts of Daniel 7 represent the same four kingdoms. How can we identify these four kingdoms or nations?
Daniel 2:36-40 — “This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. 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.” Daniel explains that these four metals represent four nations or kingdoms. The first kingdom would be the strongest, and each kingdom following would be inferior to the one before it.
Daniel 2:41-43 — “And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.”
The last part of this dream is that the fourth kingdom is iron, but it becomes mixed with clay. Then a great stone comes and destroys the entire image. This stone, cut by no human hands, breaks the four kingdoms. What does this mean? These same four kingdoms are the four beasts of Daniel 7 — and remarkably, the same four kingdoms appear again in Revelation 13.
Daniel tells the king: “You, Babylon, are the head of gold.” To properly understand any time prophecy, we need to know exactly where or when the prophecy begins. Here, Daniel gives us the key — he tells Nebuchadnezzar that Babylon is the first kingdom, represented by the first metal.
So now it becomes easy to identify these four kingdoms. If Babylon is the first kingdom, who followed Babylon? Babylon, Greece, Medo-Persia, Rome. Incredible — we now have the full explanation of the dream. Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon:
Daniel 2:38 — “Thou art this head of gold.” Babylon is the first kingdom. Then came Greece, then Medo-Persia, then Rome. But what does it mean for iron (Rome) to be mixed with clay? After Rome fell, it was divided into the European nations we recognize today. Rome’s power collapsed, and though many leaders — Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler — tried to reunite Europe into one nation with one language, none of them ever succeeded. God had already declared:
Daniel 2:43 — “And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.” God said Europe would never again become one nation, one language, one people — just as God confounded the languages at Babel to prevent that very thing.
Genesis 11:6 — “And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” God wanted to prevent another Babel-type unification.
Daniel 2:44-45 — “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 for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.”
To recap this foundational end-time prophecy: Babylon’s king has a dream. Nebuchadnezzar forgets the dream. Daniel receives the knowledge of the dream from God. The dream reveals an image with four metals. Daniel tells the king: the head of gold, the first metal, is Babylon itself. Then three other world empires would follow: Greece, Medo-Persia, and Rome. Rome would eventually fall and be divided. The divided nations of Rome would try to unite into one country and one language, but they would not succeed. Then, in the days of these divided kingdoms — that is, in the time of the European nations as we know them — God would establish His own kingdom through the return of Jesus. At that point, every earthly kingdom would come to an end, and God’s kingdom would begin.
Daniel 2:46-49 — “Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him. The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret. Then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon. Then Daniel requested of the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, over the affairs of the province of Babylon: but Daniel sat in the gate of the king.”
This was the most amazing thing Nebuchadnezzar had ever heard in his life. How could a simple human being reveal secrets and the future of planet earth, 2,000 years in advance? It is truly incredible. Nebuchadnezzar gave great glory to Daniel and placed him in the royal palace to rule alongside him. We see in later chapters that even when Media and Persia rose to power, Daniel remained a ruler in the kingdom. There is no limit to the blessings and favor of God toward us when we remain faithful to Him.
Repeat after me: Father God, help me to be faithful. Give me the one thing that makes faithfulness possible — Your righteousness by faith. Help me to understand this incredible journey of Bible prophecy. Please forgive my sins, in the name of Jesus. Amen.