It was a human form of strangely mingled materials, of giant size no
doubt, and of majestic aspect. Barbarous enough it would have looked
beside the marble lovelinesses of Greece, but it was quite like the
coarser art which sought for impressiveness through size and costliness.
Other people than Babylonian sculptors think that bigness is greatness,
and dearness preciousness.
This image embodied what is now called a philosophy of history. It set
forth the fruitful idea of a succession and unity in the rise and fall
of conquerors and kingdoms. The four empires represented by it are
diverse, and yet parts of a whole, and each following on the other. So
the truth is taught that history is an organic whole, however unrelated
its events may appear to a superficial eye. The writer of this book had
learned lessons far in advance of his age, and not yet fully grasped by
many so-called historians.
But, further, the human figure of the image sets forth all these
kingdoms as being purely the work of men. Not that the overruling divine
providence is ignored, but that the play of human passions, the lust of
conquest and the like, and the use of human means, such as armies, are
emphasised.
Again, the kingdoms are seen in their brilliancy, as they would
naturally appear to the thoughts of a conqueror, whose highest notion of
glory was earthly dominion, and who was indifferent to the suffering and
blood through which he waded to a throne. When the same kingdoms are
shown to Daniel in chapter vii. they are represented by beasts. Their
cruelty and the destruction of life which they caused were uppermost in
a prophet's view; their vulgar splendour dazzled a king's sleeping eyes,
because it had intoxicated his waking thoughts. Much worldly glory and
many of its aims appear as precious metal to dreamers, but are seen by
an illuminated sight to be bestial and destructive.
Once more there is a steady process of deterioration in the four
kingdoms. Gold is followed by silver, and that by brass, and that by the
strange combination of iron and clay. This may simply refer to the
diminution of worldly glory, but it may also mean deterioration, morally
and otherwise. Is it not the teaching of Scripture that, unless God
interpose, society will steadily slide downwards? And has not the fact
been so, wherever the brake and lever of revelation have not arrested
the decline and effected elevation? We are told nowadays of evolution,
as if the progress of humanity were upwards; but if you withdraw the
influence of supernatural revelation, the evidence of power in manhood
to work itself clear of limitations and lower forms is very ambiguous at
the best--in reference to morals, at all events. Evil is capable of
development, as well as good; and perhaps Nebuchadnezzar's colossus is a
truer representation of the course of humanity than the dreams of modern
thinkers who see manhood becoming steadily better by its own effort, and
think that the clay and iron have inherent power to pass into fine gold.
The question of the identification of these successive monarchies does
not fall to be discussed here. But I may observe that the definite
statement of verse 44 ('in the days of these kings') seems to date the
rise of the everlasting kingdom of God in the period of the last of the
four, and therefore that the old interpretation of the fourth kingdom as
the Roman seems the most natural. The force of that remark may, no
doubt, be weakened by the consideration that the Old Testament prophets'
perspective of the future brought the coming of Messiah into immediate
juxtaposition with the limits of their own vision; but still it has
force.
The allocation of each part of the symbol is of less importance for us
than the lessons to be drawn from it as a whole. But the singular
amalgam of iron and clay in the fourth kingdom is worth notice. No
sculptor or metallurgist could make a strong unity out of such
materials, of which the combination could only be apparent and
superficial. The fact to which it points is the artificial unity into
which the great conquering empires of old crushed their unfortunate
subject peoples, who were hammered, not fused, together. 'They shall
mingle themselves with the seed of men' (ver. 43), may either refer to
the attempts to bring about unity by marriages among different races, or
to other vain efforts to the same end. To obliterate nationalities has
always been the conquering despot's effort, from Nebuchadnezzar to the
Czar of Russia, and it always fails. This is the weakness of these huge
empires of antiquity, which have no internal cohesion, and tumble to
pieces as soon as some external bond is loosened. There is only one
kingdom which has no disintegrating forces lodged in it, because it
unites men individually to its king, and so binds them to one another;
and that is the kingdom which Nebuchadnezzar saw in its destructive
aspect.