Welcome back to my study/review of The Book of Daniel. If you missed the previous parts of this study, you can find them HERE.
Daniel 2:31-35
31 “You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. 32 The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
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In this section, we learn the dream. In the next section, Daniel interprets the dream. As a result, we’ll cover the material here both in this post, and in the next section wherein Daniel gives the interpretation. I’ll attempt to focus this section on the specifics of the dream itself, then spend a lot more time going over the interpretation specifics (both what Daniel says and how what he says has been variously interpreted) in the next post. But first we’ll jump into what the dream actually says, starting in The Pulpit Commentaries and its note on verse 31:
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. The Greek versions do not require notice, as they do not imply any difference in reading from the Massoretic text. The Peshitta is shorter, “Thou, O king, wert seeing, and, lo! a great image of beauty exceeding excellent, and it stood before thee.” The opening clause of the next verse may be regarded as taking up the last clause of the verse before us. As to the Aramaic of the passage, it is to be observed that the s, me long form of the second person is used in Daniel 2:29. The numeral חַד (ḥad) is used in this verse very much in the sense of the English indefinite article which is used to translate it in the English versions. It is represented in the Greek Version by μία. The particle אְלַוּ (‘alu),” behold,” does not occur in the Targums; a cognate form occurs in Samaritan, hala. In Talmudic it occurs in a form like the Samaritan. This word occurs in Daniel 7:1-28; varied by אֲרוּ (‘arū), which is regarded as a phonetic variation. It may, however, be due to defective penmanship, having the top of the לtoo faintly written. Its etymology is doubtful. No Assyrian root has been found from which it may be derived. The word for “image,” צֶלֶם (tzelem), occurs in the Palmyrene inscriptions, as the regular term for a memorial statue. Hence, unless reason can be shown to the contrary, we could assume, even though there had been no more, that the figure was like a statue of a man. The word for this, דִכֵּן (diccēn), occurs only in Daniel; the corresponding word in Ezra is דֵךְ (dēc). The n sound is one that so readily slips away, that its presence as a final letter is a sign that the form of a word possessing it is in an older stage than that without it; hence we would argue that as דֵךְ (dēc) is older than דָא (da) of the Targums, so דִכֵּן (diccēn) of Daniel is older than דֵךְ (dēc). The word that is most interesting is זִיוֵהּ (zivēh); it is rendered “brightness” in our version. It is recognized by Professor Bevan, on the authority of Delitzsch, as an Assyrio-Babylonian word, therefore affording an additional evidence of the Eastern origin of Daniel. Noldeke would derive it from the Persian zeb (quoted by Behrmann, but there is some mistake in his reference). This tendency to derive everything from the Persian is to be suspected. The long political connection between Babylon and the Aryan nations north and east of it might easily introduce words of such an origin into the writings of a Babylonian diplomat. Another derivation is from זָחָה (zahah), but seems doubtful, as, although in Hebrew, there is no trace of such a verb in Aramaic. The only other word that merits note is רֵוֵה (rēvē), “appearance.” Professor Bevan says it is the only appearance in Aramaic of a corresponding root to the Hebrew רָאָה (rā’āh), “to see.“ Daniel, it will be seen, lays stress on the emotions which each feature excited, in order to recall, not only the dream, but something of the feelings with which Nebuchadnezzar had beheld it. With this dream of Nebuchadnezzar we might compare the dream of the seer of Asshurbanipal, given by Lenormant, “The seer (voyant) narrated to Asshurbanipal how the goddess Istar had stood before him seated in her chariot, surrounded by flame, with a bow in her hand”. It is unlikely that the colossal image was identified by Nebuchadnezzar with any one of the Babylonian gods; perhaps this was one of the elements of the terror excited by the vision, that he could not identify him. If he did make any identification, Daniel does not do anything to justify him in any such identification.
As was mentioned in the introductory post to this study, Daniel is a controversial book due to debate regarding when it was written. There is evidence implying that the book dates to the actual life of Daniel, and other evidence that it was written in the 2nd century BC. This several hundred year gap matters inasmuch as some of the prophecy of the book is strikingly accurate if the earlier date is assigned to the text.
The note above comments on some of the words from this section which appear to be of an older origin. The debate around Daniel (to oversimplify and summarize) is whether a 2nd century BC writer occasionally injected an older syntax, vocabulary, style, etc., to give the appearance of age to the work, OR if an older work saw some of its syntax, word choices, grammar, etc., was inadvertently modernized by scribes in the several hundred years after Daniel.
Put another way, if you wanted to make a modern English work appear to be of greater age than it really is, you might inject some forms of King James English into the writing. Alternatively, we also see modernized versions of Shakespeare. We even see that with some translations of the Bible. (Imagine if, in two thousand years, copies of “The Message” translation created confusion regarding how other English translations came to be.) There is more details regarding the debate in Daniel in the introductory post, but it seems worth mentioning again here. Continuing on, still in TPC:
This image’s head was of fine gold, his breasts 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. The versions present no occasion of r,-mark, save that Theodotion has a doublet, αἱ χεῖρες, translating, “the hands, the breast, and the arms.” The word rendered “fine” is really “good” (טָב, ṭab). Naturally, there have not been preserved to us any composite images of this kind; gold and silver would certainly soon have found their way to the melting-pot after the fall of the Babylonian empire, had such a statue been erected in Babylon. Brass and iron were too precious not to follow in the same road. Among the Greeks, as we know, there were what were called “chryselephantine” statues, partly gold and partly ivory. In the description given of the Temple of Belus, we see a succession something akin to that in the statue, but it may be doubted whether we may deduce any connection between the two on that account. In the Book of Enoch the apocalyptist sees mountains of different kinds of metal—of gold, silver, brass, iron, tin, and mercury, the first four coinciding with the metals in Daniel’s vision. Ewald refers in a note to the possibility that this idea might be borrowed from Hesiod, but rightly dismisses it as improbable. As to the metals used, gold and silver were well known in ancient times, as also iron, though, from the difficulty of working it, later. What is here translated “brass” ought to be rendered “copper;” “bronze” certainly was known very early, but the whole use of the word, נְחָשׁ (Aramaic), or נְחשֶׁת (Hebrew), implies that it is a simple metal; thus Deuteronomy 8:9, “Out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass” (Hebrew, נְחשֶׁת; Onkelos, נְחָשָׁא). In this statue the progressive degradation of the material and situation is to be observed. The head, the highest part, gold; the shoulders, lower, silver; the belly and thighs, lower still, brass; the legs, lower yet, iron; and the feet and toes, lowest of all, a mixture of iron and clay. It is observed by Kliefoth that there is further a growing division. The head is one, without any appearance of division; the portion consisting of the breast and arms is divided, though slightly, for the chest is more important and bulky than the arms; the belly and thighs form a portion which from the plural form given to the word translated “belly,” מעוֹהי (m‛ohı̄), suggests more of dividedness than does that above. The lowest portion, that forming the legs and toes, has the greatest amount of division. Kliefoth also refers to another point—that while there is a progressive degradation of the metal, there is also progression in degrees of hardness, silver being harder than gold, copper harder than silver, and iron hardest of all; then suddenly the iron is mingled with clay. There is not a new, softer material added to form a new fifth part; but there is a mingling of “clay “—clay suitable for the potter, or rather that has already been baked in the kiln, and therefore in the last degree brittle. In fact, there is a progress in frangibility—gold the most ductile of metals, and iron the least so, then clay, when baked, more brittle still. There are many other successions that might be followed, which are at least ingenious. The idea suggested by the phrase, “part of iron and part of clay,” is that there was not a complete mingling, but that portions were seen that were clearly clay, and other portions as clearly still iron; there was therefore the superadded notion of the imperfect union of the parts with the necessary additional weakness which follows.
There are a lot of depictions of the statue from the dream, with the above being one example. As the note above states, the statue seems to represent in some sense a degradation (though we will see Daniel’s more specific interpretation in the next set of verses.) From the top though, it is gold. Then comes silver, bronze, iron, and a mixture of iron and clay. On the other hand, though, the statue while degrading also become harder from top to bottom. However, with the hardness comes brittleness.
Ellicott’s Bible Commentary notes the following on the statue that is worth remembering:
(32) Breast . . .—It should be remarked that though many different parts of the body of the image are mentioned, Daniel regards the whole thing as made up of only four parts, each corresponding to one of the four metals. Similarly he shows the history of the world in its relation to God’s people, complicated though it may be and varied in its aspect, consists of no more than four principal parts. It will be noticed that by the additional matter mentioned Daniel 2:41-42, certain minor complications of history are intended, which, however, do not interfere with the fourfold division of which the outline is here given.
The iron, and the iron/clay portion are considered to be together, with each metal corresponding to a particular people. Thus we can surmise that the iron and clay mixture is a transition of a hard people, into a mix of hard people with a different people represented by clay. (We shall see what Daniel says, though, in the interpretation section.) In the interim, let’s look at the TPC note for verse 34:
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. Practically, the versions are at one with the Massoretic text in regard to this verse, save that the two Greek versions add, ἐξ ὅρους, “out of the mountain” Concerning the Chaldee text, we would remark that in the dual form בִּידַיִן (biydayin), the dual has disappeared in the Aramaic of the Targums. Thou sawest till implies some time of contemplation and wonder. The king saw this gigantic statue, not possessing the attributes of any of his national gods, and he looks on in his dream in wonder and awe. Till a stone cut out without hands. The Greek versions make an addition which seems necessary to the sense—”out of the mountain.” This addition may certainly have been made from the later verse (Daniel 2:45). The logical necessity, however, may have prompted this addition. On the other hand, the evidence of both the Greek versions agreeing in one addition ha. very considerable weight. It is not impossible that the word מִוָּרה (mittūrah), “from the mountain,” had dropped from the manuscripts used by the Massoretes. In favour of the Massoretic text is the fact that the Peshitta omits the word. On the other band, Jerome adds de monte. It may be noted, as at least a curiosity, that the Peshitta, instead of the אבן (aben),” a stone,” gives kepha, from which Cephas, the name of the Apostle Peter, is derived. As the monarch gazes at the huge image, he sees behind the image a mountain towering above the image, huge as it is. From this mountain he sees a boulder detach itself, as if it were being cut with chisel and wedge, but no hands are risible. Once set loose from the mountain’s side, it came by bounds and leaps down the declivity, “and smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay.“ Every bound that the stone makes down the mountain is larger, and raises it higher and makes it strike the earth with more of force, till with a bound greater than any it had made before, it strikes the feet of the image, “which were of iron and clay” mingled, yet separate—and at once they are broken in pieces: “utterly crushed” is the meaning of the word דוּק (dūq). The Septuagint tendering is κατήλεσεν, “ground;” it occurs in Exodus 32:20, of Moses grinding the golden calf to powder. Theodotion’s word is not a correct rendering of the word; it is ἐλέπτυνεν, “beat into thin scales;” comp. Matthew 21:1-46 :(42) 45 (“the stone which the builders rejected”), “on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.” It is to be observed that this cutting of the stone out of the mountain took place after the fourth portion of the image was clearly visible. In the dream the catastrophe took place after the stone had been cut from the mountain and had bounded down its side. A similar chronological succession may be expected in the events foreshadowed.
It is difficult not to jump into trying to interpret the text, but we’ll do our best. A stone not of human hands – a divinely cut stone, in that case – destroys the clay and iron feet, which then in turn causes the entire statue to be destroyed. From that perspective, and from the perspective that the statue is one statue, and not four separate statues, then we might be inclined to think of it as a single thing / idea / bad celestial actor(s), presented over time in four different ways (perhaps in or through four different people groups – based on the idea that the metals each represent specific peoples.)
After the destruction, the statue – and perhaps what it represents – is wiped from history as though it never existed at all. That’s an easy thing to read past, but the implication is that *something* will be wiped from history and memory, not merely defeated. Looking at verse 35, via Ellicott:
(35) Like the chaff.—This language recalls Psalms 1:4; Psalms 2:9. It is emblematic of Divine judgments, as Isaiah 41:15-16; Jeremiah 51:33, &c. Comp. with this the description of the Judgment, Daniel 7:9-14. Observe, however, that the stone did not crush the head, breast, or loins of the body. These became fragments by falling when the feet were broken. (Comp. Daniel 7:12.)
Not to jump ahead, but if an empire is defeated, why would the destruction of that empire lead to the destruction of previous empires such that they would be wiped away? There is a lot going on here, so we’ll need to keep an eye on that in Daniel’s interpretation. TPC has a much more loquacious note for verse 35:
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 threshing-floors. The versions arc closer to the Massoretic than our Authorized Version, as they all give more prominence to כַחֲדָה (kaḥadah), “at once.” It is rendered “together.” The LXX. renders ἅμα; Theodotion, εἰσάπαξ the Peshitta repeats the word; and Jerome renders pariter. Theedotion changes the order somewhat, for the sake of making it more symmetrical. The rendering of the LXX. is in some respects different from the natural sense of the Massoretic text, but not so much so as to require us to presume a radically different text: “Then the iron, and the clay, etc; became fragments, and they were smaller than the chaff of the threshing-floor.” We have this verse also in the Itala, preserved to us in Tertullian, but it does not differ from Jerome seriously. It would follow naturally enough if the mighty image were so smitten on its weak and fragile feet, that it would come crashing to the earth; but more happened than this. As the monarch looked, in falling, the various parts of the image, as they fell in a heap, became broken, nay, triturated—they became as the dust or chaff of the summer threshing-floor. Summer is the dead time in the East; harvest is over by the end of June, and the threshing of corn then commences. All this huge statue was reduced to particles as small and light as the chaff that is beaten off the grain by the threshing instruments of those days—feet of oxen or wheel of cart. Chaff is a favourite symbol for lightness and worthlessness. In the first psalm the wicked are compared to chaff; so in Psalms 28:1-9. In Hosea, where he speaks (Hosea 13:3) of Israel’s sins, he says, “Ephraim shall be like the chaff of the threshing-floor.” Isaiah (Isaiah 41:15, Isaiah 41:16) speaks of Jacob getting new threshing instruments to thresh the mountains, and make them small as chaff. It may be noted that the word here translated “chaff” only occurs here. The word does not appear in the Targums, instead of which is used מוֹץ (mōtz), the Hebrew word. In Syriac, again, in the Peshitta, it occurs frequently, as Psalms 1:4 and Isaiah 40:15—another sign, slight in itself, of the Eastern origin of the Book of Daniel. The fact that the word occurred in Daniel would have a tendency to preserve it if in use when Daniel was published, or introduce it if it were not. Yet, as we have said, it does not appear in the Targums. It does appear in Syriac, the language of a people who, as not Jews, would presumably not be familiar with Daniel. The word for “threshing-floor,” אִדְּרֵי (iddrēi), is also one that does not appear in the Targums, but it does appear in the Peshitta. Jensen suggests an Assyrian etymology, but Brockelmann marks this doubtful; Lagarde suggests a Persian etymology, also marked doubtful. Whichever etymology holds bears out the Eastern origin of the book. The Targums represent the older Aramaic of Palestine. If Daniel were a book originating in Palestine, the Persian words appearing in it might also be expected to appear in the Targums. 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. The LXX. rendering is, “And the wind carried them away, so that there was nothing left of them, and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and smote the whole earth.” The first portion of this is a fairly correct rendering of our present Massoretic text. On the other hand, the latter clause implies that the translator had before him, or imagined he had, not מלאת, but מחת; not impossibly מלאת might be written without the silent a; thus, מלת, as in the Peshitta. In that case the mistake might easily be made. Behrmann remarks on the vocalization of מלאת in this passage being the same as מחת, but does not remark that it is written defectively in Syriac. The sense in the Massoretic text is much better than that implied in this reading. Theodotion’s rendering differs in the first clause of this portion of the present verse, “And the abundance (πλῆθος) of wind carried it away, and place was not found for them: and the stone, when it had smitten (πατάξας) the image, became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.” The rendering “multitude” (πλῆθος) is due to reading הָמוֹן instead of הִמוֹן. This form of the plural of the demonstrative pronoun is the commoner in Biblical Aramaic, but does not appear in the Targums nor the Peshitta. It is akin to the Mandaitic הינון. Neither the Peshitta nor the Vulgate presents any peculiarities of rendering. All this mass that had formed the image, though it had been gold, silver, brass, and iron, yet was so ground down—had become reduced to particles so small, that the wind carried them away. So scattered were they that they collected in no special place, so that one could say, “This is the image.” The figure is still that of the threshing-floor; the wind, blowing on the grain that is lifted up before it, carries away the chaff, but, search as one may, the chaff, once blown away, cannot be found. A more remarkable thing now takes place—the stone that, bounding down the mountainside, had smitten the image on the feet, so that it fell and became as dust, now grows apace, overtopping the utmost height the image had attained, overtopping the mountain from which it had been cut. Not only did it grow in height, but, as it increased in height, its base broadened till the whole earth was filled with it. There seems to be a reference here to Isaiah 2:2, “The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.“ As the monarch gazes in his dream, the change is completed, the huge image, with its glittering head and gleaming breast, its polished thighs and legs of iron, its unseemly feet that inspired terror by its very appearance, had utterly disappeared, and its place was occupied by a mountain, huge but peaceful, on which the flocks might browse and trees might grow. It may be noted, though not as of importance, that the material of the mountain is most akin with that of the weak clay of which the feet of the image were largely composed. Such, then, is the dream which Nebuchadnezzar had seen, and which the prophet now presented once more before him. We must, however, glance at the picture presented by the reading of the LXX. To the translator the picture evidently present was that of a stone descending from the mountain, and increasing in momentum as it descends; but this stone further increases in size, till before its tremendous strokes and rebounds the very solid earth quakes.
And that takes us through the apocalyptic dream. Next we shall see Daniel’s interpretation of the dream and in so doing we will get an opportunity to speculate about its interpretation.