Daniel 2.44b-God's Kingdom Will Crush And Destroy The Final Stage Of The Fourth Kingdom But Will Itself Endure Forever
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday May 8, 2012
Daniel: Daniel 2:44b-God’s Kingdom Will Crush And Destroy The Final Stage Of The Fourth Kingdom But Will Itself Endure Forever
Lesson # 70
Please turn in your Bibles to Daniel 2:31.
This evening we will compete our study of Daniel 2:44, which presents the interpretation of Daniel’s statements in Daniel 2:34-35.
Daniel 2:31 “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. 32 The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 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. 35 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. 36 This was the dream; now we will tell its interpretation before the king. 37 You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory. 38 And wherever the sons of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all. You are the head of gold. 39 After you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth. 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. 41 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. 42 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. 43 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. 44 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.” (NASB95)
As was the case between the first and second prophetic statements in Daniel 2:44, Daniel under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is employing the figure of “asyndeton” between the third and fourth prophetic statements in this verse.
The Holy Spirit through Daniel uses this figure because He wants not only Nebuchadnezzar to dwell or meditate upon this statement but also the reader to do so as well in order to acknowledge that God is sovereign over the nations of the earth and to give encouragement to God’s people.
“It will crush” is the third person feminine singular hafʿel (Hebrew: hiphil) active imperfect of the verb deqǎq (דְּקַק) (dek-ak´), which means “to crush” something into small pieces.
Here it refers to God the Father’s eternal kingdom “crushing” the ten nation confederacy (ten toes in Daniel 2:41, ten horns in Daniel 7:24) which will form the final and future stage of the fourth kingdom.
In Daniel 2:34, this verb was used of the rock in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream “crushing” the iron and clay feet of the great statue as a result of being struck by the rock, which represents Jesus Christ destroying the Revived Form of the Roman Empire under Antichrist at His Second Advent.
The word indicates that Jesus Christ’s victory over this empire will be total and complete.
Thus, we see this statement in Daniel 2:44 is interpreting the statement in Daniel 2:34.
The verb teaches God the Father’s eternal kingdom as manifested through the Second Advent of Jesus Christ will replace completely any reminder of this ten-nation confederacy.
Also, it will replace completely any reminder of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian kingdom, the Medo-Persian Empire, as well as the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire since remnants of these kingdoms will be found in this ten nation confederacy.
This is indicated by the fact that the body of the statue emphasized the continuity and integral relationship of the kingdoms represented in the statue, which means that though one kingdom might pass away, elements of it would be found in the kingdom, which follows it.
Therefore, the verb deqǎq not only indicates Jesus Christ’s victory over this ten-nation confederacy under Antichrist will be total and complete but also it will be total and complete over all these previous Gentile kingdoms.
His Second Advent will result in the destruction of any remnants of these previous Gentile world powers and His millennial government will cause these other forms of government to be totally and completely forgotten.
“And put an end to all these kingdoms” is a result clause since the conjunction wa, “and” is a marker of result meaning that it is introducing a statement which presents to the reader the result of Jesus Christ crushing the ten nation confederacy under Antichrist at His Second Advent.
Therefore, the word indicates that Jesus Christ’s Second Advent will crush the ten nation confederacy “so that” it will put an end to these ten kingdoms, which form the final and future stage of the fourth kingdom.
“Put an end” is the third person feminine singular hafʿel (Hebrew: hiphil) active imperfect of the verb sûp̄ (סוּף) (soof), which means “to bring to an end, destroy, annihilate.”
It is used here of God’s kingdom as manifested by the Lord Jesus Christ’s Second Advent causing the ten-nation confederacy which will form the final and future stage of the fourth kingdom under Antichrist to be brought to end or destroyed.
“To all these kingdoms” is composed of the singular construct form of the noun kōl (כֹּל) (kole), “all” and then we have the plural demonstrative pronoun ʾil∙lên (אִלֵּין) (il-lane´), “these” which is modifying the feminine plural form of the noun mǎl∙ḵûṯ (מַלְכוּת) (mal-kooth), “kingdoms.”
The noun mǎl∙ḵûṯ is in the plural and thus means “kingdoms” referring to the ten-nation confederacy which will compose the final and future form of the fourth kingdom which will reign during Daniel’s Seventieth Week under Antichrist’s authority.
This is indicated by the fact that the ten toes in Daniel 2:41-42 and the ten horns in Daniel 7:7, 20, 24 as well as Revelation 12:3, 13:1, 17:3, 7, 12 and 16 correspond to each other.
Furthermore, Daniel 2:34-35 teaches that a rock, which refers to Jesus Christ’s Second Advent, struck the feet of the statue and not any other part of the body of the statue, which led to the destruction of the statue, which refers to an empire which has not yet appeared on the pages of history.
Also, the iron in the feet indicates that the empire represented by the feet is related to the lower legs of the statue, which we noted were composed of iron, which represented the Roman Empire.
In fact, Daniel does not say that the feet represent a fifth empire, which further indicates that the feet represent an empire which is connected to the Roman Empire.
In Daniel 2:44, the noun mǎl∙ḵûṯ denotes the territorial sphere of this ten nation confederacy’s authority or control.
It refers to the political boundaries of this confederacy, which were determined by the extent to which it exercised its authority and denotes that this ten-nation confederacy consisted of cities, villages and farmland they controlled.
This noun is modified by the noun kōl, which denotes totality and is used in a distributive sense meaning “each and every one” indicating that “each and every one” of these nations, which composed this final and future stage of the fourth kingdom were destroyed by the Second Advent of Jesus Christ.
“But it will itself endure forever” is an adversative clause since the conjunction wa, “but” is used in a adversative sense meaning that it is presenting the contrast between the demise of this ten-nation confederacy and the eternality of the kingdom of God on earth.
“It will itself endure forever” is composed of the third person feminine singular form of the personal pronoun hî(ʾ) (הִיא) (hee), “it” and then we have the second person masculine singular peʿal (Hebrew: qal) active imperfect form of the verb qûm (קוּם) (koom), “will itself endure” and then we have the preposition lĕ (לְ) (leh) and its object is the masculine plural form of the noun ʿā∙lǎm (עָלַם) (aw-lam´), “forever.”
The verb qûm means “to stand” in the sense of enduring and denotes that God the Father’s eternal kingdom will stand forever on the earth as a result of Jesus Christ’s Second Advent destroying Antichrist’s ten-nation confederacy which will constitute the final stage of the fourth kingdom.
Modifying the verb qûm is the noun ʿā∙lǎm, which means “forever” and is the object of the preposition lĕ, which is used in a temporal sense as a marker of duration of time.
Therefore, this prepositional phrase means “through eternity” indicating that the kingdom the Father will establish through His Son Jesus Christ at His Second Advent will be “eternal” or “everlasting.”
Daniel 2:44 “It will crush so that it will destroy each and every one of these kingdoms. However, it will endure throughout eternity.” (Interpretative translation)
Merrill F. Unger writes concerning the millennial kingdom of Christ, he writes “In its temporal aspects it will be millennial, that is, lasting ‘a thousand years’ (20:4). But the temporal aspect will merge into the eternal phase with the creation of the new heaven and earth (21:1-22:5; 1 Cor. 15:24-28; cf. 2 Sam. 7:13, 16).” (Unger, Merrill F., Unger’s Commentary on the Old Testament; page 1619; Tyndale Theological Seminary Published by AMG Publishers, 2002)