Empires of the World. The books of Daniel and Revelation.

 

The Babylonian Empire was the largest reigning force in the world at the time Nebuchadnezzar had his dream.  It was well represented by gold, as it was a rich and lush empire.  In fact, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

But in the year 539 BCE, 66 years after Daniel had been taken captive from his homeland of Judah, the Medo-Persian army conquered Babylon and the Persian Empire entered the world stage.  Eventually the Medes would fade and the Persians would strengthen, causing the Medo-Persian Empire to become simply the Persian Empire.

Map by Anton Gutsunaev

The Greeks were a pain in the neck for the Persians.  First, the Greek cities of Ionia rebelled against Persia but they were defeated.  Then, as retribution for the rebellion, Xerxes decided to overtake Greece itself. 

 You have probably seen movies or heard about the 300 Spartans and other Greek warriors fighting against the Persian king Xerxes at the pass of Thermopolae.  This battle took place in 480 BCE while the Persian Empire was extremely strong.  The Greeks lost the battle at Thermopolae but they eventually stopped the Persians at the navel battle of Salamis and forced Xerxes to withdraw from Greece.  This was not the end of the Greek/Persian story as Greece was to be the ruin of the Persian Empire.

Phillip of Macedonia would be the first to unite the City States of Greece under one ruler. After Phillip died, his son Alexander would solidify the allegiances of the lesser kings in Greece and in 334 BCE he took his armies into Asia Minor to fight against Darius and his Persian Empire.  In just three years Alexander the Great had defeated the Persians and Greece was now the world’s largest empire.  In 323 BCE at the age of 33, Alexander died and his empire was divided among his Generals (see Appendix 1). 

Now we move on to the legs of iron portion of the prophecy: Rome.  Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that the fourth kingdom would be as strong as iron and would crush and shatter all that came before it.  This is a good description of the Roman Empire.

 There are debates as to the exact beginning of the Roman Empire.  This is due to the fact that the rise of Rome seems to be almost accidental.  Rome did not start out with a conscious plan to conquer other nations and begin its own empire; it actually started to expand through reactionary events.  When it perceived a threat of any kind by an outside force, Rome would rally the troops and march into battle.  In the middle of the second century BCE Rome squashed a threat from Macedonia and it became the first of the Greek provinces divided after Alexander’s death to come under the rule of the Roman Empire.

  

No two scholars can agree on what exactly caused the end of the Roman Empire, and that is probably because no one thing is to blame.  Some of the theories given for its fall: an undisciplined army, civil wars, barbarian invasions, over extension, political infighting, laziness, etc.  What matters to us is the fact that the Roman Empire had collapsed by the end of the fifth century CE and is no more. 

This leads us to the feet part of the statue where iron is mixed with clay, or where nations are no longer ruled by one World Empire but are a mixture of strong and weak nations.  Never again would a human world empire exist.  That does not mean people have stopped trying.  Napoleon tried to create a French Empire but failed, and Hitler tried to create a Third Reich that would last a thousand years, but he too failed. 

 People have even tried to unite countries through marriage.  A royal from one country would marry a royal from another country in an attempt to unify, but it always failed.  As late as World War I we saw the failure of these intermarriage attempts in that the Russian, German and British monarchies were all related but were at war anyway (see Appendix 1).  God told Daniel there would not be a human world empire after Rome and no matter how hard people have tried, this prophecy has held true.

The rock that pulverized the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream smashes first into the feet of the statue, signifying the establishment of Jesus’ kingdom will occur sometime after world empires have ceased to exist and the world is divided into different nations.  It is fitting that God used a rock to signify his kingdom as the Bible has often referred to God as a Rock of Salvation (Deut. 32:15), an everlasting Rock (Is. 26:4), a Rock, a fortress and a deliverer (Ps. 18:2), a Rock and a Redeemer (Ps. 19:14), etc.

 ...Is there any God besides Me? Or is there any other Rock? I know of none.                                                                        

                                                                                                                   Is. 44: 8