Daniel's angel told him that ALL the visions he had given Daniel were going to be fulfilled by the time God had "shattered the power of the holy people" (Daniel 12:7). That INCLUDED the fulfillment of ALL the prophecies regarding the 70 weeks, AND ALSO the destruction of Daniel's statue of empires. First-century Israel was shattered as a nation by the time Jerusalem was taken, and the temple was torn down to the last stone in AD 70. Even before then, the intact, no-gap 490 years of Daniel 9 (beginning in 454 BC) had already been completed by 37 AD. Because of Daniel 12:7, your interpretation of a modern-day fulfillment applied to this statue cannot possibly be correct.
You are way off base here. Take Daniel 12:1:
"“Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands
guard over the sons of your people, will arise.
And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time;
and at that time your people,
everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued." This very much sounds like the final judgment in Revelation 20, where the book of life is open, and those found in it are saved, and those not in it are thrown into the lake of fire.
"10 Many will be purged, [
k]purified and refined, but the wicked will act wickedly; and none of the wicked will understand, but [
l]those who have insight will understand. 11 From the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished and the [
m]abomination of desolation is set up,
there will be 1,290 days."
So the prophecies given by Daniel lead to many being purged, purified, and refined. Notice here how the time from the 70 weeks of Daniel adds up to 3 years and 7 months, not 3 1/2 years. Why? It will take that long for the many to be purged, purified and refined. This is Zechariah, where the people recognize Jesus, and they mourn for Him. All of that... 30 days. And there is the 1290 days. And then 1335 days. That will be for you to figure out.
And if you don't think the Jews understood these concepts, Daniel understood what God meant when He said "13 But as for you, go
your way to the [
n]end; then you will enter into rest and rise
again for your allotted portion at the end of the [
o]age.”" The Jews were not lacking in their knowledge of death and resurrection. This understanding is why Abraham willingly carted off Isaac to sacrifice to God. He believed God would resurrect Isaac after Abraham sacrificed him. So even Abraham understood.
It is immaterial when Rome as an empire ceased. You are mistaking exactly what was crushed when that ENTIRE statue was turned into dust SIMULTANEOUSLY by the single blow of Christ the "Stone" kingdom. This was not the destruction of the civic, governmental agencies or monarchs that composed those empires, since each of those earlier pagan empires in the past (Chaldean, Medo-Persian, Greek) had already been phased out over the centuries before Rome arose to power, and had each been taken over by the subsequent pagan empire that replaced it.
It is very important when Rome ceased. I mean, you want that to go away because it runs contrary to your beliefs, not because prophecy says different. And I am not mistaking exactly what was crushed.
Daniel 2:
"44 In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and
that kingdom will not be [
av]left for another people;
it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever." It is putting an end to the systems and kingdoms of men.
Instead, it was the ENTIRE Satanic realm of wicked angelic creatures which had been operating behind the scenes of every one of those empires which was destroyed simultaneously by Christ the "Stone" crushing that entire statue in a single blow. It was Christ's mission to destroy the Prince of the kingdoms of this world. As promised, Christ accomplished this by AD 70, which is why He is victoriously portrayed as wearing those "MANY crowns" of the kingdoms of this world in Revelation 19:12. Christ is already the reigning King of kings. We are not waiting for this to happen. He rules, even in the midst of His enemies. We believers as His ambassadors to the world, with His Holy Spirit within each of us, are living proof of that.
We are waiting. The final enemy has not been defeated, which is death. That does not happen until Revelation 20 when death and hades are cast into the lake of fire, along with all whose names are not written in the book of life. So it is very important that Rome still existed, which means it had not been crushed by the stone as God clearly stated would happen in Daniel, and is reflected in a literal interpretation of Revelation. Jesus shows up in Revelation 19 with the armies of heaven to crush the kingdoms of the Earth. It is at this time that He victoriously overcomes the enemies that the Father made His footstool, and His Kingdom is founded on Earth and fills the entire Earth. The Millennial Kingdom.
Of course there are four pagan empire Beasts in Daniel's image. But the "CLAY" in Daniel's statue is actually another "Beast" - specifically the Revelation 13 "Beast from the Land" (of Israel), which "exercised all the power of the first Beast" in the eyesight of that first Sea Beast (which was the Roman empire's governor stationed in Jerusalem). This blend of the "CLAY" of Jerusalem's religious leadership had been pandering to Rome in order to preserve their own position. This was a very unstable mixture. The Zealots' rebellion against Rome launched in AD 66 brought an end to that Israelite "clay" / Roman "iron" mixture.
There is no real differentiation made between the iron and the iron and ceramic other then:
"40 Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces. 41 In that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with [
as]common clay. 42
As the toes of the feet
were partly of iron and partly of pottery,
so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. 43 And in that you saw the iron mixed with [
at]common clay, they will combine with one another [
au]in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery."
"and part of it will be brittle". What is it? The kingdom of iron. It has taken on a different vestige. A revived Roman empire that is not as strong as the original. Part will be strong, and part will be brittle. How do we know? There is only a fourth kingdom mentioned here and it says "it will be a divided kingdom". The object of the word it is... "fourth kingdom". And no, the clay in the statue is not another beast. If you go over the description of the fourth beast, it is obvious that it embodies all of the fourth kingdom.
Daniel 9 "7 After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it,
and it had ten horns. 8 While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and behold, [
g]
this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great boasts."
The great boasts being uttered are blasphemies against the Most High God. Exactly what the early church fathers said that Antichrist would do in the temple.
"23 “Thus he said: ‘The fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which will be different from all the
other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth and tread it down and crush it. 24 As for the ten horns,
out of this kingdom ten kings will arise; and another will arise after them, and he will be different from the previous ones and will subdue three kings."
So no, it isn't another beast. It is clear here that it is all the same beast. The ten toes are represented by the ten horns. And the fourth kingdom that the ten kings arise out of... ROME. And the kings arise, so this speaks of a revived kingdom, or a revived Roman empire.
