What is the context?
Daniel describes a great, dazzling statue: a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet combining iron and clay.
A stone cut without human hands strikes its feet and crushes the whole statue. All its materials become like chaff carried away by the wind, leaving no trace.
The stone becomes a great mountain filling the earth. The contrast is between an impressive structure that cannot endure and something brought about without human workmanship that ultimately fills its place. The next verses explain what those images represent.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Henry reads the statue as successive earthly kingdoms and the stone as Christ’s kingdom. Cambridge emphasizes the complete disappearance of the statue and the expanding reach of the kingdom represented by the mountain.
The image is explained by the interpretation that follows. It need not be turned into a separate code in which every feature receives a meaning unrelated to that explanation.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.