King Nebuchadnezzar’s nightmare, as recounted by Daniel the prophet in Daniel chapter 2, is a dream about empires. Daniel introduced the interpretation with “Thou, O king, art a king of kings” (Dan 2:37 KJV). This was an important statement right at the start of the interpretation. He was drawing attention to the fact that King Nebuchadnezzar was an emperor, a king over other kings, which is a rank higher in power than a mere king.
The nightmare is a timeline or continuous ‘big picture’ overview of world empires, that affected the Jews from Daniel’s day right up until the “stone” smashes the image on its feet.
This stone (Dan 2:35) is interpreted by most readers to be the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he establishes the kingdom of God on earth. It is the most important feature of the dream, and hasn’t happened yet.
The latest version of the Jehovah’s Witness New World Translation bible (2013) has an appendix which shows their pictorial interpretation of the dream. . Their diagram is missing the stone! This is because their current beliefs, as shown on the diagram, have the feet of the image as the ‘Anglo-American’ empire. This “empire” clearly has not crumbled yet, despite their erroneous belief that the stone, Jesus, returned invisibly to the earth in 1914.
This erroneous diagram demonstrates the necessity to correctly understand the fundamentals of an interpretation.
Many speaking brethren seem to be following a similar error. They interpret the “president” of Russia as the “king of the north” or “Gog”, who is a “prince”. There is also a widespread use of the European Union as the “10 kings”, yet there are only 6 monarchies in the EU (Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
In Daniel’s interpretation of the dream he stated that the toes are kings, “in the days of these kings” (Dan 2:44). These kings are thought by most Biblical scholars to be the same ten kings as those that are on the fourth beast, described in Daniel 7:24 “the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings”. They also may be the ten horns on the Beast out of the Sea, which is implied by the crowns. “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns” (Rev 13:1).
Many scholars have interpreted these ten kings to be ten countries or ten rulers or even ten kings which existed 15 centuries ago, when the Western Roman Empire ended. This interpretation ignores the historical continuation of the Roman Empire with its capital in Constantinople.
Does the term ‘king’ actually mean a “monarch” or just any “head of state”? In Biblical times were there different forms of government other than monarchies ?
Josephus wrote “Some legislators have permitted their governments to be under monarchies: others put them under oligarchies: and others under a republican form. But our legislator had no regard to any of these forms: but he ordained our government to be, what, by a strained expression, may be termed a Theocracy” . Democratic government had already been started by the Greeks.
A differentiation between kings and lower ranked governors is made in Psalm 2:2,3 “The kings (Heb. melek) of the earth set themselves, and the rulers (Heb. razan) take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”
This psalm is quoted by the disciples in Acts 4:26, “The kings (Gk. Basileus) of the earth stood up, and the rulers (Gk. Archon) were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.” Herod was an actual king, but Pontius Pilate was not. Herod was appointed king of the province Judea by the Roman senate.
Only kings and emperors wear crowns, never presidents and non royals, such as Putin, and Hitler, who called himself the Fuehrer (leader). Hitler keenly sought the crown of the Holy Roman Empire and deposed the actual German Kaiser, but did not wear any crown.
Royal crown jewels and regalia denote power and were, and still are, amongst the most valuable items on earth.
King David “ took the (Ammonite) king's crown from off his head, the weight whereof was a talent of gold with the precious stones: and it was set on David's head.” (2 Sam 12:30).
The Lord Jesus Christ, the son of King David, will be a “king of kings and lord of lords” (Rev 17:14) in the Kingdom of God on earth. He will wear many crowns (Rev 19:12). We enjoy singing the hymn “crown him with many crowns”.
The Hebrew word for king is Melek. It occurs 2,518 times in the Hebrew, and the vast majority of times it is translated as “king” or “royal”. In the Greek OT and NT the word for king is Basileus.
Were the kings of Israel presidents? Was King David anointed president? Will the Kingdom of God be a republic? Was Jesus born president of the Jews?
Daniel’s interpretation is clear, and analogy or symbolizing of these ten kings, which appear right at the end of our era, and are present at the return of the Lord Jesus, is not necessary. “Faith is simply belief in what God has said” .
If there really are going to be ten kings at the end time, then who could they be?
Nebuchadnezzar’s nightmare image is top heavy, with unstable feet. The toes are made of iron and clay, (Daniel 2:34). These toes, which are yet to mature, may be constitutional monarchs, from the royal houses of Europe and Russia, which survived exile after WW2. They will no longer be solid iron Roman monarchs , but will be weakened by parliamentary clay.
The pretenders to these thrones have returned to live in their former home countries, including the Royal Houses of Austria, Russia, Germany, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Italy, Greece, France, Spain, Portugal, and Albania. Most have not yet been restored to their roles as monarchs..
These monarchies are not Protestant British or northern European monarchs, as they must be Roman in nature, with Roman heraldic symbols, laws and religion (Roman Catholic or Orthodox).
The Muslim monarchies and nations, today have not used a Roman eagle, nor mode of government (Roman law), and the Muslims regard those religions as idolatrous.
The Russian royal family, the Romanovs (their surname literally means ‘of the Romans’), was deposed in 1917, and the Tsar and his immediate family were executed in July 1918. But there are still Romanovs alive today who are waiting for restoration of the monarchy.
The current crown prince of the Russian throne, Grand Duke Georgy Romanov, nicknamed ‘Gogi’ by his family , aged 40 yrs, is now living back in Moscow! He is related to most of the monarchies of Europe, being a direct descendant of the monarchs of Russia, Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, etc. He is even a direct descendant of Mohammed, yes, the original one, through a Spanish princess who married Tsar Peter the Great of Russia. The Muslims are respectful of this lineage.
GD George is working full time as a representative of the Romanov family throughout Russia, and is heavily involved with the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian military. He also has connections with oligarchs and influential figures directly involved in the clandestine operations of the Kremlin, such as Konstantin Malofeyev and Leonid Reshetikov. They are both personally under US & EU sanctions. They wish to restore the monarchy in Russia, with Putin as either Tsar himself or as Prime Minister of a Romanov Tsar.
GD George is engaged to be married to an Italian ‘noble’ woman in St Petersburg, on October 1st 2021, despite the pandemic. It will be the first royal Romanov wedding in Russia in over 100 years. He has been given special dispensation to hold the wedding ceremony in St Isaac’s Cathedral, currently used as a museum. It is proposed to televise the wedding live on Russian state TV and it is being billed by the Russian media as ‘the wedding of the century’! Their wedding bands are made by Faberge and the bride is to wear a modern diamond tiara. They have issued 1,000 invitations to their royal relations and Russian celebrities. They are hoping to have their honeymoon on the Trans-Siberian train across Russia. The wedding is sure to raise the profile of the Romanov family throughout Russia.
The Austrian Habsburg Kaiser, Karl II, who had sided with Germany in WWI, was exiled to Spain. His grandson, Karl von Habsburg, now lives in Salzburg, Austria. Karl and his family have been hugely influential within the European Union and Roman Catholic Church. There were even requests from monarchists in Czech and Slovakia for him to be installed as president of the EU. They were seriously considered, due to their political influence in their home countries.
The possibility of the restoration of 10 constitutional monarchies in Europe and Russia is actually quite feasible and is mentioned frequently in the media of these countries, in their languages, usually not in English. Many have hired professionals to help raise their profiles, through social media accounts, public events and charitable works.
In most cases their royal regalia, such as crowns and thrones, were not destroyed but have been preserved. The royal regalia’s of Russia and Austria are among the most spectacular in the world and are great tourist attractions in these countries.
The ten toe monarchs will be the equivalent of the 10 horns on the head of Daniel’s fourth beast, Dan 7:24. They will only arise in “the last days”, when the dream’s stone is ready to strike the feet of the image. “The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast” (Rev 17:12).
“And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs… which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty… And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” (Rev 16:13-14, 16).
These kings will make war with the stone, led by another king who will arise among them. Gog, the Tsar of Russia, the king of the north, will come south to take possession of Constantinople and Jerusalem, as prophesied in Daniel 11 and Ezekiel 38 and 39.
The stone that smashes the image is not made with hands. It comes from God, and it represents the Lord Jesus Christ who described Himself as a stone, Mat 21:42, Mar 12:10, Luke 20:17 and this is confirmed by Peter, in Acts 4:11, 1 Pet 2:7.
Jesus Christ will establish the Kingdom of God on earth, when He returns. The kingdoms of men will be finished. The Lord Jesus will be the ultimate emperor, who will be called “King of Kings” and “Lord of Lords”.