great image
The monarchy-vision. Nebuchadnezzar's dream, as interpreted by Daniel, gives the course and end of "the times of the Gentiles" (Luke 21:24).
( See Scofield) - (Revelation 16:19)
That is, of Gentile world-empire. The four metals composing the image are explained as symbolizing (Daniel 2:38-40) four empires, not necessarily possessing the inhabited earth, but able to do so (Daniel 2:38), and fulfilled in Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece (under Alexander), and Rome. The latter power is seen divided, first into two (the legs), fulfilled in the Eastern and Western Roman empires, and then into ten (the toes)
( See Scofield) - (Daniel 7:26).
As a whole, the image gives the imposing outward greatness and splendour of the Gentile world-power.
The smiting Stone (Daniel 2:34); (Daniel 2:35) destroys the Gentile world-system (in its final form) by a sudden and irremediable blow, not by the gradual processes of conversion and assimilation; and then, and not before, does the Stone become a mountain which fills "the whole earth."
(Compare (Daniel 7:26); (Daniel 7:27).
Such a destruction of the Gentile monarchy-system did not occur at the first advent of Christ. On the contrary, He was put to death by the sentence of an officer of the fourth empire, which was then at the zenith of its power. Since the crucifixion the Roman empire has followed the course marked out in the vision, but Gentile world dominion still continues, and the crushing blow is still suspended. The detail of the end-time is given in (Daniel 7:1-28); and Revelation 13-19. It is important to see
(1) that Gentile world-power is to end in a sudden catastrophic judgment
(see "Armageddon," (Revelation 16:14); (Revelation 19:21).
(2) that it is immediately followed by the kingdom of heaven, and that the God of the heavens does not set up His kingdom till after the destruction of the Gentile world-system. It is noteworthy that Gentile world-dominion begins and ends with a great image. (Daniel 2:31); (Revelation 13:14); (Revelation 13:15).