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Chapter 2: During the second year of the reign of Nabuchodonosor,
the king had a dream (Problem of second year explained above). He
called all the wise men, including the "Chaldeans". The word has
two meanings 1) members of that nation 2) a special class of
astrologer-soothsayers. The king demands that they tell him what
dream he had and then interpret it. They were unable, and said no
king had ever asked such a thing. If they had the picture of the
dream, they could devise something, and the king knew it. Being a
real tyrant, the king said he would have them torn apart - no
metaphor In the most literal way of understanding the expression
'You shall be made into limbs", the arms and legs would be tied to
four trees near each other, with the tops of the trees roped
together. When the upper rope would be released, the trees would
spring back literally tearing the victim to pieces. Or, they might
be hacked to pieces with swords and axes. So the king ordered that
it be done to them, including Daniel and associates. The reason:
they had claimed special powers, but now were proved to be fakes.

When Daniel heard of it he asked to see Arioch, the king's
captain, and got him to beg a bit of time from the king. Daniel
and his friends then prayed. Then he went to the king and said he
could interpret the dream, not by his own power, but by the power
and wisdom of God.

Daniel told the king that he, the king, had begun to think of
"days to come".- this expression first appears in Gen 49.1 at the
start of the prophecy made by Jacob. It also occurs in Dt. 4.30,
in 31.39, in Is 2.2, Ezek 38.16 and in Dan 10.14.

In his dream, the king had seen a giant statue, terrible to
behold. The head was gold, standing for the power of
Nabuchodonosor. Obviously, the first king, the golden head, is the
Babylonian kingdom.

Then other kingdoms: breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs
of bronze, and legs of iron with its feet part iron, part clay.
The mixture foretells a mixed people which would not hold up
because of the mixture of iron and clay- which do not blend.
Perhaps there would be an alliance by marriage, which would not
last.

After that would come another kingdom that will never be
destroyed. For a rock cut out of a mountain, without human hands,
would break the previous kingdoms to pieces, the gold, silver, and
bronze and iron. The stone that was cut out without hands would
stand forever.

The second and third kingdoms could be Medio-Persian and Alexander

<It is also clear that the stone that filled the earth is the
messianic kingdom (cannot be Jews, who never did get such power,
last forever so the stone is Jesus, cut from the mountain, the
Rock which is God (often called Rock in OT) He is cut out without
hands stands for virginal conception and birth.>

<What then is the 4th kingdom?> Many have been tempted to see the
4th kingdom as Rome, so it may connect in time with the messianic
kingdom, which comes after it. But gaps in time in things that at
first sight seem continuous common enough- cf. Isaiah on death of
sennacherib in cap 37 and Luke on return to Nazareth) But we must
note that the feet standing for that kingdom are part pottery,
part iron - which do not mix. This hardly fits the strong power of
Rome. <Many interpreters take the four to be: Babylonian, Median,
Persian, and Hellenistic kingdoms after the death of Alexander. We
observe: if one follows that view, then there is a Median kingdom
before the Persian, which would imply that Darius the Mede, who in
6:1 took Babylon, is a historical figure. Most writers say Darius
is fictitious, that Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon>. If so, we
would say the edifying narrative genre could account for the
matter. However, we must add that the Jewish historian, Flavius
Josephus, in his Antiquities, 10, 245-49 (xi.4) does report that
there was a Darius the Mede, a kinsman, who would have ruled for
Cyrus for a time while Cyrus was occupied with other things. Such
an action would be quite in character with the known policies of
Cyrus.