The Statue

 
In the beginning of Daniel's writings, while the Israelites were being held captive in Babylon, he (Daniel) interpreted the king's dream. The dream was of a huge statue which symbolizes empires that would be on this earth until the end of the age.
Daniel's interpretation was:
Daniel 2:31-36
You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome. The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. 
Dan. 2:39 
And after you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth. 
 Dan. 2:40 
 Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces.
Dan. 2:41-43
And in that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery.
Dan. 2:44-45
And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future; so the dream is true, and its interpretation is trustworthy.” (NASB) 
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  • The Head- Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar the Chaldean.
  • Upper Body and Arms- Media-Persia, under Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian.
  • Belly and Thighs- Greece, under Alexander the Great.
  •                                (The thighs were Seleucus (Babylonia) and Ptolemy, (Egypt).)
  • Legs and Feet- The last days beast
    		•
      .
    You will find these 4 empires in all of Daniel's visions. They tell of the time from Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, in 607 BC, to the last Empire of this age, which is the Antichrist's Empire that brings on the last war. Each of these empires have, or will have in the future, attacked  and ruled over Israel. It is the struggle over Israel that God tells us about. It is the struggle over Israel (Jerusalem) that will bring about all the end time events that, in turn, will bring this age, as we know it,  to an end.
  • There is one very important fact that escapes man when looking at the statue vision and understanding why there is only 4 empire that God is concerned with, when there were many more empire on earth than just 4,  and that is the fact that each of these empires ruled from one place, The Babylon area between the two rivers.  It is where Iraq is located today.

    • .

    God begins showing all the empire that fit this criteria, starting with Babylon. When the Jews captivity in Babylon finally ends, after 70 years.  God will put His people back in the land of promise, but they would be under the rule of the next Empire, Media Persia.

     The Medes and Persians merged and conquered the Babylonian empire, but still ruled Israel from the old city of Babylon between the two rivers. Then came Greece and Alexander the Great.

    As I was studying these 4 empire of the statue dream I noticed a common thread running through them all.

    King Neb ruled over his lands and Israel from Babylon. The Media-Persians set up kings to rule over this portion of their lands from Babylon and also Israel, as we can figure from the book of Daniel. Alexander the Great moved to Babylon. Most people don't know that Alexander fell in love with the city of Babylon and moved there to rule his kingdom from there. He died there, and His empire was split up between four generals. Two became very powerful. The king in the North, which was Seleucus, and the king in the South, which was Ptolemy. Seleucus built a new city in the land of Babylon called Seleucia and from there tried to take the southern kingdom as His own. The other two generals took the area of Greece and Turkey. These sit side-by-side kings of the West and  East concerning this empire. Seleucid, the Northern kingdom, included not only the Babylon area but also Syria, which is located directly North of Israel. Seleucus is sometimes called the King of Syria, because he had a second palace there. But He ruled from his capital city that laid between the two rivers in the Iraq area. Babylon and all the following empires that occupied that area attacked Israel from the North and that is what all these visions are about.  In fact many of the battles took place in the same northern valley in Israel that will be the place of the final battle called Armageddon.

    Further along in this study, in the King of the North time-line given to Daniel, I will be matching scripture with history about these kingdoms represented in the staue dream. The last of these Kings of the time-line are the empire of the feet and 10 toes of the statue dream.  It will come forth out of the dust of the Northern Grecian kingdom of Seleucus (in the same northern lands, now Syria/Iran/Iraq) and will be the  last empire, leading all radical Islamists in an attack against Israel. I believe this is also the one God calls Gog.

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