Daniel 2:44

44. In the days of these kings That is, the kings of the fourth empire and, as all the symbols indicate, at the end of the empire and after the dividing process had greatly weakened it. At this period a new kingdom, like a mountain cliff, is to show itself for the first time and take the place of the artificially constructed kingdoms which had preceded it. This kingdom is to be an everlasting kingdom; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms. This cannot be taken literally. The Messianic kingdom did not literally break in pieces the Babylonian or the Medo-Persian or the Greek kingdom, for these had all been broken in pieces and destroyed ages before, as the book itself elsewhere states (Daniel 7:7; Daniel 7:11; Daniel 7:23; Daniel 11:4). These successive empires were not literally broken to pieces “together” (Daniel 2:35) but successively. This seeming discrepancy merely shows that symbols must not be pressed too far. The statue really represented successive and not contemporaneous empires, but when a statue, struck upon the feet, falls, it necessarily falls altogether. So, literally, the Messianic kingdom did not arise “in” the days of the Seleucid kings, but shortly after the dissolution of that empire (cir. B.C. 60). So, literally, it was not Christianity, but the power of Rome as the agent of Providence which smote the already crumbling toes of this image of successive world-empires. The emphasis, as is shown by the other symbols used, is not upon the direct assault of the new kingdom upon all these kingdoms (that is, the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek, and Syrian), but upon the fact that it was to immediately follow these other world-empires from which the Jews had suffered so greatly, and to take their place. As Cowles says, the kingdom of Messiah was set up in the days of those kings “only in the sense of preparatory work done by the agencies of divine providence. The demolition of those kingdoms prepared the way for the formal, visible inauguration of Messiah’s kingdom. The visible inauguration and setting up followed this demolition, and was not strictly simultaneous. The language, which is very general, certainly admits this construction. The sense of the symbols seems to require it, and the genius of the entire vision sustains it.” Terry profoundly observes, “The truth is that in the overthrow of all those kingdoms Babylon as well as Persia or Greece the Most High God was setting up his kingdom by preparing the way of his Messiah.”