History 1-25c—Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream
Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream (with Parent Resources)
from Daniel 2
King Nebuchadnezzar had been the king for two years when he had a very
strange dream. He could not sleep and called in his magicians, wise men and
astrologers (people who claimed to tell the future by looking at the stars) to tell
him his dream and the interpretation of the dream. None of these “wise men”
could tell the king his dream. He told them if they could not they would all be
killed. The wise men said, “There is not a man upon the earth” that can tell you
your dream. The king became furious and decided he would have all of them
killed.
Daniel and his friends did not know about the king’s dream. They asked the
king’s captain, Arioch, why the king was so angry. Arioch told them that the king
had a dream and called in his wise men and none of them could interpret the
dream so the king was going to have them all killed. Daniel went in to the king
and asked for a little bit of time to provide the interpretation. The king agreed to
give him a little time. Daniel went home and told his friends. They prayed and
asked the Lord to help Daniel to know the dream so that they would not perish.
That night the Lord revealed the dream and the interpretation to Daniel. Daniel
was grateful and blessed the name of God. He said: “I thank thee, and praise
thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and
hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee” (Daniel 2:23). Daniel
told Arioch that he would tell the king the dream, so Arioch took Daniel in to see
the king. The king said: “Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which
I have seen and the interpretation thereof?” (Daniel 2:20). Daniel said that no
man could tell him but that there was a God in heaven that reveals secrets and
could make the dream known.
Daniel then proceeded to tell the king what the king had seen in his dream. He
said that there was a great and terrible image. The image had a head of fine
gold, his breast and his arms were of silver, his belly and his thighs were of brass,
the legs were of iron, and the feet were part of iron and part of clay. Then he
saw a stone that was cut out of the mountain without hands which hit the
image upon the feet and caused the image to fall to the ground and brake in
pieces. The image was ground up so fine that it was like little bits of dust. The
stone became larger and larger until it “became a great mountain and filled
the whole earth” (Daniel 2:32-35).
Then Daniel went on to tell the king that the head of gold was King
Nebuchadnezzar and the empire of Babylon. The breast and arms of silver
represented the next great kingdom, which would be the Medes and Persians
under Cyrus the Great. The belly and thighs of brass represented the kingdom of
Macedonian or Greece under Alexander the Great. The legs of iron
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use by the original purchaser’s own immediate family. No part of this publication may be transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
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History 1-25c—Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream
represented the Roman Empire led by the great Caesar’s. The feet of clay and
iron represented the kingdoms that would come from the Roman Empire. Some
of these are France, Spain, Italy, England, Russia, Germany, and finally the
United States of America.
Daniel told the king that the stone cut out of the mountain without hands would
be the kingdom of God which would never be destroyed but it would consume
all the other kingdoms and stand forever and ever. The king fell on his face and
worshipped Daniel and said: “Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods,
and a Lord of kings.” He recognized that only the true God of heaven could
have revealed his dream to Daniel. He understood that God had showed him
the story of the history of the world.
Parent Resources
“The Christian world today is witness of the fact that the very things which the
great image stood for have occurred so far as time has gone. History certifies to
the fact that King Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold. The Medes and
Persians, an inferior kingdom to Babylon, were the arms and breast of silver. The
Macedonian kingdom, under Alexander the Great, was the belly and thighs of
brass; and the Roman kingdom under the Caesars was the legs of iron. For mark
you, later on the kingdom, or empire of Rome, was divided. The head of the
government in one division was at Rome and the head of the government in
the other division was at Constantinople. So these two great divisions
represented the legs of iron. Finally, the Roman Empire was broken up into
smaller kingdoms, represented by the feet and toes of iron and clay.”
(President Rudger Clawson, quoted in Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings to Malachi:
Church Educational System, 2nd ed., 1982, p. 298.)
The Prophet Joseph Smith said of the stone: “I will correct the idea in regard to
the little stone rolling forth, as foretold in Daniel, chapter 2. This is not so. It is
stationary, like a grind stone, and revolves. (He made a motion with his hands
showing how it turned.) When the Elders go abroad to preach the gospel, and
the people become believers in the Book of Mormon and are baptized, they
are added to the little stone. Thus, they are gathered around it so that it grows
larger and larger until it begins to pinch the toes of the image, and finally breaks
it into pieces to be carried away like the chaff of a summer’s threshing, while the
stone will keep growing until it fills the whole earth.”
(Quoted by Henry William Bigler in They Knew the Prophet, comp. by Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen
Mae Andrus, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1977, p. 100.)
© 2012 American Heritage Schools, Inc. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for copying of the notebook pages and other online resources for
use by the original purchaser’s own immediate family. No part of this publication may be transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.