Deeper ReflectionGod revealed to Nebuchadnezzar “what would take place in the
future” (vv.28-29) through the statue of “extraordinary splendour”
and “awesome appearance” in his dream (v.31). The statue is
“a single great statue” with four parts made of different materials. It
represents the human kings and kingdoms in world history. Daniel 2
presents to us, “not a timetable, but a theology of history”
15 .The statue from its head of gold to its feet of iron and clay mixture does
not mean that superpowers in history grow from stronger to weaker.
Historically, the kingdom that arose “after” Babylon was “inferior” Persia
(v.39). But ironically, it was this “inferior” kingdom that toppled golden
Babylon. The “third kingdom of bronze” “will rule over
all the earth”,
which would be as expansive as the Babylonian and Persian kingdoms, if
not, more (v.39). The “fourth kingdom” made of “partly iron” and “partly
clay” is both “strong” and “brittle” (v.42). But it “crushes and shatters
all
things” with its “iron” power (v.40).The statue is to be understood as a whole. It reveals the character of
human power – in politics, the workplace, and possibly, the church. It
is “a mixture of shining glory and crazy instability. It was full of inner
contradictions by being made partly of costly and useful metals, but partly
of a stupid and impossible mixture of metal and pottery. And the weakest
part was at the place where it most needed to be strongest – at its feet;
all that gleaming glory above, but on a fragile, crumbling base below”
16 .
Human power is so unstable and insecure.
15 Gordon Wong, Faithful to the End: The Message of Daniel for Life in the Real World (Genesis, 2006), 25
16 Christopher J. H. Wright, Hearing the Message of Daniel: Sustaining Faith in Today’s World (Zondervan, 2017), 53
