Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar's dream
Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a great statue of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay struck down by a stone; Daniel revealed the dream and its meaning: four kingdoms, and then God's everlasting kingdom.
“In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, nor will its sovereignty be left to another people; but it will break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it will stand forever.”
Daniel 2:44 (World English Bible)
The king demanded that his wise men tell him both the dream and its meaning. When they couldn't, he ordered them all executed. Daniel and his friends prayed, and God revealed the mystery.
The stone cut without hands becomes a mountain filling the earth. Christians have long understood it as the kingdom of Christ, established during the days of the fourth kingdom, commonly identified as Rome.
Places
Dating notes
Nebuchadnezzar's second year (Daniel 2:1). Ussher, 604 BC. The four kingdoms are traditionally identified as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.