Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Daniel 2:39 - 2:39
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
That Medo-Persia is the second kingdom appears from Dan 5:28 and Dan 8:20. Compare 2Ch 36:20; Isa 21:2.
inferior - “The kings of Persia were the worst race of men that ever governed an empire” [Prideaux]. Politically (which is the main point of view here) the power of the central government in which the nobles shared with the king, being weakened by the growing independence of the provinces, was inferior to that of Nebuchadnezzar, whose sole word was law throughout his empire.
brass - The Greeks (the third empire, Dan 8:21; Dan 10:20; Dan 11:2-4) were celebrated for the brazen armor of their warriors. Jerome fancifully thinks that the brass, as being a clear-sounding metal, refers to the eloquence for which Greece was famed. The “belly,” in Dan 2:32, may refer to the drunkenness of Alexander and the luxury of the Ptolemies [Tirinus].
over all the earth - Alexander commanded that he should be called “king of all the world” [Justin, 12. sec. 16.9; Arrian, Campaigns of Alexander, 7. sec. 15]. The four successors (diadochi) who divided Alexander’s dominions at his death, of whom the Seleucidae in Syria and the Lagidae in Egypt were chief, held the same empire.