World History & The Holy Bible (Head of Gold)
1. Head of Gold: The kingdom of Babylon which was in power from 606 B.C. to 539 B.C.
Many years ago (605 B.C to 561 B.C), a king called Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, where he saw an image with a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, waist and thighs of bronze, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. He didn’t know what this image meant so he called all the magicians and enchanters of his kingdom to find out what the dream meant. See Daniel 2:1-3
When the dream was interpreted through Daniel, a slave chosen as one of the elites when Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem (See the “The Spirit of Excellence | Daniel”), the dream summarized the kingdoms of the world until the end of time.
Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was in ancient Mesopotamia, the ruins are located about 55 mi (89 km) south of Baghdad, near the modern city of Al-?illah, Iraq. Babylon was the main city and one of the most famous cities in antiquity. Probably first settled in the 3rd millennium B.C, it came under the rule of the Amorite kings around 2000 B.C. It became the capital of Babylonia and was the chief commercial city of the Tigris and Euphrates river system. Destroyed by Sennacherib in 689 B.C, it was later rebuilt. It attained its greatest glory as capital of the Neo-Babylonian empire under Nebuchadnezzar (605 B.C – 561 B.C). Alexander the Great, who took the city in 331 B.C, died there. Evidence of its topography comes from excavations, cuneiform texts, and descriptions by the Greek historian Herodotus. Most of the ruins are from the city built by Nebuchadnezzar. The largest city in the world at the time, it contained many temples, including the great temple of Marduk with its associated ziggurat, which was apparently the basis for the story of the Tower of Babel. The Hanging Gardens, a simulated hill of vegetation-clad terracing, was one of the Seven Wonders of the World (Source: Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, also a guardian report during the US lead attack on Iraq in 2005.
An aerial view of Babylon showing the reconstructed Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, with adjacent helipad (at the top, between the palace and the lake) and trailers for military housing (PHOTO: Martin Bailey January 25, 2005)
According to Daniel’s interpretation shown to him by God (because Daniel told the king that no man can interpret the dream or tell the king whathe saw, except God. See Daniel 2:27-29) the dream meant several kingdoms of the world up to the end of times and the head of Gold represented the Babylonian Empire see Daniel 2:36-38.
The bible also records in:
Jeremiah 51:7, Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, making all the earth drunken. The nations drank of her wine; therefore the nations have gone mad.
Revelation 17:4-5, 4The woman was robed in purple and scarlet and bedecked with gold, precious stones, and pearls, [and she was] holding in her hand a golden cup full of the accursed offenses and the filth of her lewdness and vice.(A) 5And on her forehead there was inscribed a name of mystery [with a secret symbolic meaning]: Babylon the great, the mother of prostitutes (idolatresses) and of the filth and atrocities and abominations of the earth.
2. The Chest and Arms of Silver
