"Thou Art This Head Of Gold"

Fearlessly Daniel revealed to Nebuchadnezzar that the head of gold is a symbol of great Babylon.
The kingdom of Babylon, which finally developed into the nation represented by the golden head of the
great historic image, was founded by Nimrod, the great-grandson of Noah, more than two thousand years
before Christ. "Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter
before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the
beginning of his kingdom was Babel ["Babylon," margin], and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land
of Shinar." Genesis 10: 8-10. It appears that Nimrod also founded the city of Nineveh, which afterward
became the capital of Assyria. (See marginal reading of Genesis 10: 11.)

Fulfillment of the Dream. The Babylonian Empire rose to power under the general who also
became king, Nabopolassar. When he died in 604 BC his son Nebuchadnezzar became king. As R.
Campbell Thompson declares: "Events had already shown that Nebuchadrezzar was a vigorous and
brilliant commander, and physically as well as mentally a strong man, fully worthy of succeeding his
father. He was to become the greatest man of his time in the Near East, as a soldier, a statesman, and an
architect. Had his successors been of such a stamp instead of callow boys or dilettanti without redeeming
vigor, the Persians would have found Babylonia a harder problem. 'All the nations,' says Jeremiah
(Jeremiah 27: 7, R. V.), 'shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his own land
come.' " [2]

Jerusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar in the first year of his reign, and the third year of Judah
(Daniel 1: 1). 606 BC Nebuchadnezzar reigned two years conjointly with his father, Nabopolassar. From
this point the Jews computed his reign, but the Chaldeans from the date of his sole reign, 604 BC, as stated
above. Respecting the successors of Nebuchadnezzar, the authority just quoted adds:
"Nebuchadnezzar died about August-September, 562 BC, and was succeeded by his son Amel-
Marduk (562-560 BC), whom Jeremiah calls Evil-Merodach. He was given little time to prove his worth;
the two years of his brief reign are merely enough to show that political conditions were again hostile to
the royal house." [3]

The later Babylonian rulers, weak in power, could not equal the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Cyrus,
king of Persia, besieged Babylon, and took it by stratagem.
The character of the Babylonian Empire is indicated by the head of gold. It was the golden
kingdom of a golden age. Babylon, its metropolis, towered to a height never reached by any of its
successors. Situated in the garden of the East; laid out in a perfect square said to be sixty miles in
circumference, fifteen miles on each side; surrounded by a wall estimated to have been two hundred to
three hundred feet high and eighty-seven feet thick, with a moat, or ditch, around this, or equal cubic
capacity with the wall itself; divided into squares by its many streets, each one hundred and fifty feet in
width, crossing at right angles, every one of them straight and level; its two hundred and twenty-five
square miles of enclosed surface laid out in in luxuriant pleasure grounds and gardens, interspersed with
magnificent dwellings this city, with its sixty miles of moat, its sixty miles of outer wall, its thirty miles of
river wall through its center, its gates of solid brass, its hanging gardens rising terrace above terrace till
they equaled in height the walls themselves, its temple of Belus three miles in circumference, its two royal
palaces, one three and a half and the other eight miles in circumference, with its subterranean tunnel under
the River Euphrates connecting these two palaces, its perfect arrangements for convenience, ornament,
and defense, and its unlimited resources this city, containing it itself many things which were themselves
wonders of the world, was itself another and still mightier wonder. There, with the whole earth prostate at
her feet, a queen in peerless grandeur, drawing from the pen of inspiration itself this glowing title, "The
glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency," stood this city, fit capital of that kingdom
which was represented by the golden head of this great historic image.

Such was Babylon, with Nebuchadnezzar in the prime of live, bold, vigorous, and accomplished,
seated upon its throne, when Daniel entered within its walls to serve as a captive in its gorgeous palaces
for seventy years. There the children of the Lord, oppressed more than cheered by the glory and prosperity
of the land of their captivity, hung their harps on the willows by the Euphrates, and wept when they
remembered Zion.

There began the captive state of the church in a still broader sense; for ever since that time the
people of God have been in subjection to earthly powers, and more or less oppressed by them. So they will
be until all earthly powers shall finally yield to Him whose right it is to reign. And lo, that day of
deliverance draws on apace!

Into another city, not only Daniel, but all the children of God, from least to greatest, from lowest
to highest, are soon to enter. It is a city not merely sixty miles in circumference, but fifteen hundred miles;
a city whose walls are not brick and bitumen, but precious stones and jasper; whose streets are not the
stone-paved streets of Babylon, smooth and beautiful as they were, but transparent gold; whose river is not
the Euphrates, but the river of life; whose music is not the sighs and laments of broken-hearted captives,
but the thrilling paeans of victory over death and the grave, which ransomed multitudes shall raise; whose
light is not the intermittent light of earth, but the unceasing and ineffable glory of God and the Lamb. To
this city they shall come, not as captives entering a foreign land, but as exiles returning to their father's
house; not as to a place where such chilling words as "bondage," "servitude," and "oppression," shall
weigh down their spirits, but to one where the sweet words, "home," "freedom," "peace," "purity,"
"unutterable bliss," and "unending life," shall thrill their souls with delight forever and ever. Yea, our
mouths shall be filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing, when the Lord shall turn again the
captivity of Zion. (Psalm 126: 1, 2; Revelation 21: 1-27.)

Verse 39 And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass,
which shall bear rule over all the earth.

Nebuchadnezzar reigned forty-three years, and was succeeded by the following rulers: His son,
Evil-Merodach, two years; Neriglissar, his son-in-law, four years; Laborosoarchod, Neriglissar's son, nine
months, which, being less than on year, is not counted in the canon of Ptolemy; and lastly, Nabondius,
whose son, Belshazzar, grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, was associated with him on the throne.
"The proof of this association is contained in the cylinders of Nabonadius [Nabonidus] found at
Mugheir, where the protection of the gods is asked for Nabu-nadid and his son Bel-shar-uzur, who are
coupled together in a way that implies the cosovereignty of the latter. (British Museum Series, Vol. I. pl.
68, no. 1.) The date of the association was at the latest 540 BC, Nabonadiu's fifteenth year, since the third
year of Belshazzar is mentioned in Daniel 8: 1. If Belshazzar was (as I have supposed) a son of a daughter
of Nebuchadnezzar married to Nabonadius after he became king, he could not be more than fourteen in his
father's fifteenth year." [4]

The Fall of Babylon.

In the first year of Neriglissar, only two years after death of
Nebuchadnezzar, broke out that fatal war between the Babylonians and the Medes, which resulted in the
overthrow of the Babylonian kingdom. Cyaxares, king of the Medes, who is called "Darius" in Daniel 5:
31, summoned to his aid his nephew Cyrus of the Persian line. The war was prosecuted with uninterrupted
success by the Medes and Persians, until in the eighteenth year of Nabonidus (the third year of his son
Belshazzar), Cyrus laid siege to Babylon, the only city in all the East which then held out against him. The
Babylonians gathered within their seemingly impregnable walls, with provision on hand for twenty years,
and land within the limits of their broad city sufficient to furnish food for the inhabitants and garrison for
an indefinite period. They scoffed at Cyrus from their lofty walls, and derided his seemingly useless
efforts to bring them into subjection. According to all human calculation, they had good ground for their
feelings of security. Never, weighed in the balance of earthly probability, could that city be taken with the
means of warfare then known. Hence they breathed as freely and slept as soundly as though no foe were
waiting and watching around their beleaguered walls. But God had decreed that the proud and wicked city
should come down from her throne of glory. And when He speaks, what mortal arm can defeat His word?
In their feeling of security lay the source of their danger. Cyrus resolved to accomplish by
stratagem what he could not effect by force. Learning of the approach of an annual festival in which the
whole city would be given up to mirth and revelry, he fixed upon that day as the time to carry his purpose
into execution.

There was no entrance for him into that city unless he could find it where the River Euphrates
entered and emerged, as it passed under the walls. He resolved to make the channel of the river his
highway into the stronghold of his enemy. To do this, the water must be turned aside from its channel
through the city. For this purpose, on the evening of the feast day above referred to, he detailed on body of
soldiers to turn the river at a given hour into a large artificial lake a short distance above the city; another
to take their station at the point where the river entered the city; and a third to take a position fifteen miles
below, where the river emerged from the city. The two latter bodies were instructed to enter the channel as
soon as they found the river fordable, and in the darkness of the night explore their way beneath the walls,
and press on to the palace of the king where they were to surprise and kill the guards, and capture or slay
the king. When the water was turned into the lake, the river soon became shallow enough to ford, and the
soldiers followed its channel into the heart of the city of Babylon. [5]