Questions From Readers
◼ What is symbolized by “the feet and the toes” of the “immense image” described at Daniel 2:31-45?
This prophecy was inspired by the One “who is a Revealer of secrets,” the Sovereign Lord Jehovah God himself, and reaches its culmination in “the final part of the days,” when the issue of world domination is to be settled once and for all time. (Daniel 2:28) Up until our day, from the start of “the times of the Gentiles” in 607 B.C.E., there has been a succession of world powers, commencing with imperial Babylon and proceeding with Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and the Anglo-American empire. These are represented by the metallic parts of the image.—Luke 21:24, King James Version.
However, with the ending of the Gentile Times in 1914, a conglomeration of different kinds of man-rule has appeared here on the earth. (Matthew 24:3-12) The common man (“the offspring of mankind” made from the dust of the ground) wields greater influence in affairs of government. Socialistic and democratic rulerships have come to the fore, along with other ironlike oppressive forms of government. They are like the “iron mixed with moist clay” that make up the feet and toes of the image.
Various views have been expressed about the ten “toes.” But since “ten” is often used in the Bible to signify completeness as to things on earth, the ten “toes” appear logically to represent the entire global system of rulership at the culmination of the days. It is against the feet and toes of the image that ‘God’s Kingdom comes,’ grinding to powder the final manifestations of man-rule. How happy we can be that the peaceful, prosperous rule of Christ’s Kingdom will then fill the entire earth!a—Matthew 6:9, 10; compare Isaiah 11:1, 9.
The further dream of Nebuchadnezzar described in Daniel chapter 4 points also to events following the end of the Gentile Times. At last people must come to “know that the Most High is Ruler in the kingdom of mankind, and that to the one whom he wants to he gives it,” that is, to the King, Jesus Christ.—Daniel 4:25; 7:13, 14.
[Footnotes]
a See “Your Will Be Done on Earth,” published in 1958 by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., pages 108-27, for a more detailed discussion of the “immense image.”