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dynasty in King Rehoboam. Jereboam rejected the priests--the tribe
of Levi--and the Levites mostly joined with the nation Judah.
They, and they only, became known as the Jews.
In 721-718 B.C., King Shalmaneser of the Kingdom of Assyria
(prior to Nebuchadnezzar's Chaldean Empire) had conquered the
Kingdom of Israel (TEN TRIBES), and moved them as slaves into the
land of Assyria, on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. He had
put Babylonians, of the Babylon Mystery religion, in the land of
Samaria--north of Jerusalem, from where he had evicted the ten-
tribe Kingdom of Israel. They were still there in the time of
Christ--Gentiles, in northern Palestine, retaining the Babylonian
Mystery religion.
More than 120 years after the captivity of the Kingdom of
Israel, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged and conquered the
Kingdom of Judah (the Jews) and evicted them from Judea as slaves,
taken to the land of Babylon.
Among these Jewish captives were four outstanding, especially
talented and brillant Jewish lads, of which Daniel was one.
Nebuchadnezzar set them in important posts in the Chaldean
government.
God used all four in dealing with the Chaldean King
Nebuchadnezzar--but especially Daniel as a prophet of God.
The Book of Daniel, chapter 2 records the incident of the
super impressive dream in which Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a
tremendous metallic statue. Daniel was called to tell the king
what he had dreamed, and the message God conveyed to Nebuchadnezzar
through it. The head of this enormous statue of a man was of fine
GOLD, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass,
the legs of iron, and the feet and toes a mixture of iron and miry
clay--utterly non-adhesive.
This God-given dream was a PROPHECY. God revealed His
tremendous MEANING to Nebuchadnezzar. The head of gold represented
Nebuchadnezzar and his first WORLD EMPIRE, the Chaldean or the
Babylonian Empire. The dream contained a time-element. After
Nebuchadnezzar's empire was to arrive a second empire, even larger
and stronger in military might, but of less spiritual and moral
values--the breast and arms of silver--the Persian Empire. It was
later to be followed by a still larger and stronger empire though
of lesser moral and spiritual value; Greece. The legs of iron
represented the strongest of all in physical strength, yet it
divided--the two legs of iron representing the two divisions of the
Roman Empire with the western capital at Rome, and the eastern
capital at Constantinople (called Istanbul, Turkey today). The feet
and ten toes represented OUR TIME--this latter half of the
twentieth century--at the CLOSE of the six-thousand-year sentence
God imposed on the DAY OF MAN. It represented the Kingdom of God
finally replacing all these Gentile kingdoms (verse 44).
Iron is stronger than brass, silver or gold, but less
valuable. But miry clay, mixed with the iron toes, is both the
least in value and strength. And iron and clay will not cleave