Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is a prominent character in the book of Daniel. The mighty king, who conquered Jerusalem and carried off most of its citizens to exile in Babylon, had a strange dream that none of his court magicians could interpret.
The young Jewish man Daniel, who was serving as a court official, learned from God the meaning of the dream and reported it to the king.
Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a huge statue of himself, with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mingled with clay. Daniel explained that the gold represented Nebuchadnezzar himself and the kingdom of Babylon.
The silver part represented a later, and inferior kingdom, the bronze another, and so on. The “feet of clay” represented a kingdom that would not stay united.
Historians and Bible readers have had a field day trying to connect the dream with world empires.
Some say the iron legs represent the Roman Empire, but hundreds of other possibilities (none of which can be proved) have been put forward.
