Alexander in a dream of Nebuchadnezzar

What’s a dream, one would ask, but in antiquity, dreams were taken very seriously. Kings and those who could afford it would have a priest or a seer to interpret them. 

It so happens that the Prophet Daniel resided at the court of King Nebuchadnezzar and was able to explain his strange vision. 

Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon from 605 until 562 BC. He led a series of successful campaigns, including the conquest of Jerusalem, where he plundered the famous Temple of Solomon and took the people of Judah into captivity. Among the prisoners was the Prophet Daniel, whom  Nebuchadnezzar invited to stay at his court. 

At first, Nebuchadnezzar called in his own diviners, magicians, enchanters, and Chaldean astronomers and astrologers to clarify his dream, but they were unable to offer any explanation. Then Daniel was led before the king. 

Daniel confirmed that in his vision, Nebuchadnezzar had seen an immense statue whose radiance was spectacular and frightening at the same time. Its head was made of gold, the chest and arms of silver, the lower back and thighs of bronze; the legs were made of iron, and the feet were a mixture of iron and clay. As the king looked at the statue in his dream, a stone hit the feet and pulverized the iron and clay. The entire statue made of gold, silver, and bronze was crushed and collapsed in the process. 

Following this introduction, Daniel explained the meaning of this unusual dream. Nebuchadnezzar, who conquered the world (as considered in his days), is the gold head. After him, another kingdom would rise, lesser than his. Then again, a third kingdom, a bronze one, would dominate the world. The ensuing fourth kingdom would be hard as iron, like iron that pulverizes and crunches everything. Like the iron, this last kingdom would pulverize and crush them all. 

The feet partially made of iron and partially of clay as seen by Nebuchadnezzar, meant a divided empire. It would be strong as iron. However, the toes made of a mixture of iron and clay meant that they would be strong in one part and weak in another. As iron and clay could not be bonded, the people could not unite either. 

The empires to succeed Nebuchadnezzar’s are not being named, nor are the names of the kings to come. Scholars have discussed this endlessly, but a very plausible sequence seems to be that the second silver empire would be that of Darius I the Great, followed by the third bronze Persian Empire the largest kingdom that ever existed in antiquity. The fourth kingdom was the Greek rule started under Alexander the Great that fell apart after his untimely death and was split into four kingdoms that fought each other and never bonded together (the Diadochi). 

How and why Daniel was capable of explaining this vision of King Nebuchadnezzar and how Daniel’s explanation was pasted onto the future kingdoms has been subject to endless discussions. But this is. after all, an entirely different matter, which I’ll not develop here.

Needles to say that the story comes from the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament.