And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter's clay, and part of iron,.... That is, some of the toes of the feet were of iron, and others of them of clay: these toes, which are ten, as the toes of men are, design the ten kings or kingdoms, into which the western Roman empire was divided, by the coming in of the Goths, and Hunns, and Vandals, into it; and are the same with the ten horns of the beast, and the ten kings which gave their kingdoms to it, Revelation 13:1,
Daniel 7:24, some of which were strong like iron, and continued long; others were like clay, and of a less duration:
the kingdom shall be divided; which some understand of the division of it into the eastern and western empires; but rather it means the division of the latter into the ten kingdoms, set up in it by the barbarous nations. Abarbinel and Jacchiades interpret it of the Roman empire being divided into Mahometans and Christians, very wrongly:
but there shall be in it of the strength the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay; notwithstanding this irruption and inundation of the northern nations into the empire; yet still retained, something of the strength and power of the old Romans, which were mingled among those barbarous nations, comparable to miry clay.