The Times of the Gentiles

“Thou, O king, art a king of kings; for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.” —Daniel 2:37,38

THE king referred to in our text is Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled the Babylonian Empire during the heyday of its power and glory. He was ruler at the time the Jewish nation was conquered and its people taken captive to Babylon. This occurred in 606 B. C., although some of the Jewish people were taken to Babylon some fifteen or sixteen years before this, among them Daniel and his three friends, who later became high officials in the Babylonian Empire.

The four world Gentile powers, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, are often referred to in conjunction with each other, and one might suppose that these were the only great empires of ancient times, but actually there were others. Egypt was one of these, and then there was the Assyrian Empire which destroyed the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel and took many of these tribes into captivity in Assyria.

Besides, there were almost innumerable smaller Gentile nations and powers. Many of these, such as the Amalakites and the Philistines, were hostile to God’s chosen people Israel, and were used by the Lord on various occasions to punish his covenant people because they had been unfaithful to their covenant with him. And there are still Gentile nations and powers quite unrelated to the Babylonian Empire which are not being used by the Lord as that empire was, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream

Near the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign as king of the Babylonian Empire he was startled by a dream—a dream which he could not even remember when he awakened. The astrologers, or wise men of the realm, were summoned to remind him of his dream, and to give its interpretation. These claimed that if the king could tell them the dream they could interpret it, but confessed their inability to inform the king regarding what he had dreamed.

Then, in the Lord’s providence, Daniel, one of the young Hebrews brought early into captivity, was sent for, and with the help of the Lord Daniel was able to inform the king of the dream and give its interpretation. The account of this is recorded in Daniel 2:26-45. According to Daniel’s explanation, what the king saw in his dream was a human-like image. It had a head of gold; breast and arms of silver; belly and thighs of brass, and legs of iron. Its feet and toes were a mixture of iron and clay. In the dream a stone was cut out of the mountain “without hands” which smote the image on its feet. The image fell.

“Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.”

The Interpretation

Daniel continued, “This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold!”

It should be remembered that Nebuchadnezzar, as head of the Babylonian Empire, was already the most powerful ruler on earth. His capture of Jerusalem, and the taking of the Israelites captive, ended the last shred of resistance to his rulership among the then so-called civilized nations of earth. Thus Daniel’s proclamation to the king did not increase his regal authority and power, but it did add something which was not his before, for now he was to rule by the authority of the God of heaven—“The God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom.”—vs. 37

Not God’s Kingdom

The fact that God gave the king of Babylon a kingdom did not mean that the Babylonian Empire became the kingdom of God. Prior to the overthrow of Israel’s last king, Zedekiah, God did have what we might call a typical kingdom on earth. At the time of the death of King David it is said of Solomon that he “sat on the throne of the Lord as king instead of David his father.”—I Chron. 29:23

All the royal descendants of David enjoyed this same status until Zedekiah. Then this special arrangement came to an end “until he come whose right it is,” (Ezek. 21:27) which will be the antitypical David, vested with divine authority to rule over Israel and all nations, to bless all the families of the earth as promised to Abraham.

Meanwhile God’s authority and his overruling power was vested in Babylon, to start with, and in the empires which succeeded Babylon right on down to Rome and its divisions in the various states of Europe. Rome was in power in apostolic days, and Paul then wrote that “the powers that be are ordained of God.”

This succession of power and authority was represented in the image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream; represented, that is, by the breast and arms of silver; the belly and thighs of brass, and the legs of iron. The feet, with its toes, pictured the ultimate divisions of the Roman Empire. As noted, these succeeding world powers were Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. As we know, Rome was not succeeded by a fifth world power, but was divided into the various states of Europe.

The feet and toes were made of a mixture of clay and iron. Concerning this Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar: “And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter’s clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall he in it of the strength of iron, forasmuch as thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay; and as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.”—vss. 41-43

Daniel’s explanation that the powerful rulers represented by the feet and toes of the image “mingled themselves with the seed of men” may suggest an admixture of rulers with common people, in the form of parliaments and that its was this that brought about—or initiated—a disintegration of these dictatorial governments. Others suggest that it represents the union of church and state. The main point in any case is that the foundations of the image were weakened, which, when the time came for its destruction, made its fall the more certain.

The Image Smitten

And the whole image did fall, and was destroyed. Daniel prophesied this to Nebuchadnezzar. We quote: “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away.”—vss. 34,35

There is an unusual statement in this prophecy. It informs us that when the image was smitten on its feet every part of it fell “together.” Now the fact is that the Babylonian Empire fell long before the Medo-Persian Empire. The Grecian Empire fell long before to the legions of Rome. Babylon as a city, and Babylon as a nation went out of existence long before those later powers came into existence which are shown in the image picture.

How, then, could it be said that the whole image—the gold, the silver, the brass, the iron—would fall “together”? It is evident that this “together” aspect of the prophecy relates to something which was common to all the powers pictured in the image, which was that the God of heaven had given them a kingdom. It was this dominion that the image represented, more than the mere fact of the existence of certain empires and nations.

The Divided Rome

The various divisions of the Roman Empire, as pictured by the feet and toes of the image, were still in existence until our modern era. It was these divisions which constituted the various states of Europe which began to make war with each other in A.D. 1914. Men of the world, quite apart from any knowledge of what the Bible has to say about world conditions in this end of the age, recognize the fact of the passing of the various divisions of Rome as a result of the first World War. Writing in 1939 in the London (England) Sunday Express, Mr. C. A. Lyon had this to say about it:

“Who, in 1910, would have believed any of the things that have come to pass among the ruling houses of Europe in a few short years? Consider them as they were—the Romanoffs, the Bourbons, the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns. Before the war they seemed entrenched in power and wealth forever. Think of how for centuries they had owned Europe and ruled it. How they had told the world that God had appointed them to rule it. How they called each other ‘Sir, my brother,’ and formed themselves into a little elect intermarrying band. Some had a high idea of their calling. Others abused their power and wealth in loose living and luxury. But they all believed that they were permanent, privileged, irreplaceable.

“And yet, a series of little puffs of wind that blew soon after they assembled in strength for almost the last time at Edward VII’s funeral in 1910 sent them flying. Not one of them, it is safe to say, had the least inkling of the disasters and adventures that were to befall them and their relatives.”

How true a picture this is of what happened to Europe’s royalty as a result of the first World War; and now, more than thirty years after the article was written, the facts are more clearly evident. Significant in the article, because it is pointed out in the Bible, is the statement that these kings believed that God had appointed them to rule, as he had appointed Nebuchadnezzar.

“The God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom,” Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar. This truth became distorted through the centuries, and finally was referred to as “the divine right of kings.” However, this form of rulership was destroyed as a result of the first World War so far as having any active influence in world affairs was concerned. The powerful church-state kings were overthrown, and no one since has advocated a return to the pre-1914 status of European government as a solution to the world’s problems.

The kingdom which God gave to Nebuchadnezzar, and which was handed down to the succeeding empires, including Rome and its divisions, was not the messianic kingdom. Through Nebuchadnezzar God had overthrown the last of his typical messianic rulers, namely Zedekiah, and now it was time in the divine plan for his people Israel to be without a government of their own for a period of more than 2,520 years. (See Part 1 of this article, “The Times of the Gentiles.”) Israel was to be “trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”

God’s granting of authority in the affairs of Babylon, and her successors, was in order to overrule in their affairs in connection with the foretold punishment of his people. While at times we speak in general terms of the Israelites being scattered throughout the earth, actually the vast majority of them throughout the centuries did not go beyond the territory ruled by the four great Empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. This was, in general, the habitat of “the wandering Jew.”

Incidentally, also, God’s giving of authority to these particular powers does not mean that he blessed them in all that they did, nor that he guided their affairs either in war or in peace, but rather he did this in the interest of his people, the footstep followers of Jesus, that “little flock” to whom it is the Father’s good pleasure to give a share in he rulership phase of his messianic kingdom. He has seen to it that they will have had experiences best suited to their spiritual growth and development. Sometimes these experiences have been those of bitter persecution, and sometimes of peace and tranquility; and God’s hand has been in the affairs of nations to see to it that each of his saints, as a new creature in Christ Jesus, has just the experiences needed.

It is interesting to note also that the greater proportion of the “little flock” have been gathered and developed in the western world—largely the old Roman world. Even the ancestors of those living in the United States were, for the most part, Europeans. So the Lord, in his foreknowledge, knew where the important events related to his plan would be carried out, and made necessary preparations in advance. Surely God does “move in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.

Nations Still Exist

Can we say that “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24) have ended while there are so many Gentile nations still existing? The prophetic period which Jesus referred to as “the times” of the Gentiles does not refer to the existence of Gentile nations as such. The period, rather, was one during which the Jewish nation was to be trodden down by the Gentiles. As we saw in our previous article, this situation no longer exists. Today Israel is a free nation among the world of free nations. So from this standpoint alone there is no escaping the conclusion that “the times of the Gentiles” have ended.

The treading down of the Israelites by the Gentiles began in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Babylon as a nation existed prior to this, as did Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. The particular date in which Nebuchadnezzar was given a kingdom by the Lord was 606 B.C., and many Gentile nations existed long before this date. The end of the “times of the Gentiles,” therefore, does not imply the end of all Gentile nations.

Nor did the Gentile times’ prophecy apply to all the Gentile nations of earth, but only to the Babylonian Empire and its successors on down to Rome and its divisions. As we have noted, these nations shared the idea, distorted and abused though it became, that they ruled by divine right. It was this concept which ended with the closing of “the times of the Gentiles.” So from this standpoint also we are assured that “the times of the Gentiles” have ended.

Preparing for the Kingdom

The closing of “the times of the Gentiles” occurs in the end of the age, when the Lord is preparing to set up the messianic kingdom, and the fact that we have seen this prophecy fulfilled gives us assurance that the kingdom is near. In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream he saw the image smitten with a stone cut out of the mountain, causing the destruction of its various parts “together.” Daniel explains this to mean that “in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.”—Dan. 2:44,45

This kingdom of God which was to fill the whole earth started as a stone cut out of the mountain without hands, and became a great “mountain” which filled the earth. (vss. 34,35) The power and authority of God’s kingdom as initially represented in Jesus first destroys the kingdoms of this world, and then grows until it fills the whole earth. And this begins “in the days of these kings.” With the return of our Lord there comes the resurrection of the sleeping saints. Inasmuch as these shall live and reign with Christ, their resurrection constitutes a part of the setting up, or preparation, for the kingdom. When all the saints are resurrected at the close of the “harvest,” then the completed church will be ready to “shine forth as the sun” with Jesus, “in the kingdom of their Father,” Jesus then functioning as “the Sun of righteousness with healing in his wings.” What a blessed prospect!

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