The Four Gentile Kingdoms

When King Nebuchadnezzar had his dream, (Daniel Chapter 2) Daniel interpreted the dream as representing the 4 great kingdoms with Babylon being the greatest. How did the the remaining 3 get lined up with the Medo-Persian empire, Greek empire and the Roman empire?

Q. Thank you for all you do. I have learned so much from you and point people to your site all the time.

My question is this. When King Nebuchadnezzar had his dream, (Daniel Chapter 2) Daniel interpreted the dream as representing the 4 great kingdoms with Babylon being the greatest. I admit I don’t know my history all that well, however, how did the the remaining 3 get lined up with the Medo-Persian empire, Greek empire and the Roman empire? I am wondering how those lined up as opposed to, say, the Chinese Dynasty which was also a great empire.

A. God has always viewed history from Israel’s perspective. Babylon conquered Israel and became the statue’s head of Gold. Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar this meant that God had made him the ruler of all mankind and even the animals, no matter where they were on Earth. (Daniel 2:38) There were other great kingdoms on Earth, but had he wanted to Nebuchadnezzar could have conquered them all. When Media-Persia conquered Babylon they assumed that power, followed by Greece, who conquered Persia, and finally Rome.

It has always interested me that the metal representing each succeeding Kingdom was less precious on one hand while also stronger on the other. To me this means that each one had less integrity and was more oppressive than its predecessor, so it’s probably good that they didn’t know they could have conquered the whole world if they had wanted to.