Daniel 2:42

And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle.

BSB

Parallel translations

4 additional translations

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KJV

And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.

ASV

And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.

YLT

As to the toes of the feet, part of them iron, and part of them clay: some part of the kingdom is strong, and some part of it is brittle.

DBT

And [as] the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.

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On this verse

And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay,....

John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)reformed

Related commentary

But its feet and toes are partly of iron and partly of earthenware, a fact most clearly demonstrated at the present time. For just as there was at the first nothing stronger or hardier than the Roman realm, so also in these last days there is nothing more feeble, since we require the assistance of barbarian tribes both in our civil wars and against foreign nations.

Jerome· St. Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, CHAPTER TWO, 420patristic

And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken - Margin, brittle. The margin is the more correct rendering of the Chaldee word (תבירה tebı̂yrâh). It means frail, fragile - easily broken, but not necessarily that it was actually broken. That did not occur until the stone cut out of the mountain impinged on it.

Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)evangelical

NEWTON, who understands the Roman empire to be parted into the ten kingdoms already (whereas TREGELLES makes them future), explains the "clay" mixture as the blending of barbarous nations with Rome by intermarriages and alliances, in which there was no stable amalgamation, though the ten kingdoms retained much of Rome's strength.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871reformed

But to Nebuchadnezzar, a heathen prince, they were represented by a gay and pompous image of a man, for he was an admirer of the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them. To him the sight was so charming that he was impatient to see it again.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710puritan

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Cross-references

3 linked verses

The verses this one reaches3

Daniel 7:24
And the ten horns are ten kings who will rise from this kingdom. After them another king, different from the earlier ones, will rise and subdue three kings.
Revelation 13:1
Then I saw a beast with ten horns and seven heads rising out of the sea. There were ten royal crowns on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.
Revelation 12:3
Then another sign appeared in heaven: a huge red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven royal crowns on his heads.

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About this book

Daniel in the Lions' Den — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain

Daniel — A Hebrew exile at Babylonian and Persian courts sees empires rise and fall, a Son of Man coming with clouds, and seventy weeks locating Messiah in time. The canon's densest apocalyptic text — and its most interpretively contested.

Canon: Old Testament
Author: Daniel (traditional — Jesus cites ‘Daniel the prophet’ in Matt 24:15); critical scholarship dates composition to the 2nd c. BC Maccabean period (both positions surfaced)
Date: Traditional: 6th c. BC. Critical: c. 165 BC. Site default: traditional; critical view surfaced at depth 2

Where the connections lead

Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first — the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.

Through
Revelation 13:1
Then I saw a beast with ten horns and seven heads rising out of the sea. There were ten royal crowns on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.
leads to
- Revelation 17:3
  And the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, where I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten…
  Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
- Revelation 12:3
  Then another sign appeared in heaven: a huge red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven royal crowns on his heads.
- Revelation 11:7
  When the two witnesses have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will wage war with them, and will overpower and kill them.
- Daniel 7:23–25
  This is what he said: ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on the earth, different from all the other kingdoms, and it will devour the whole earth, trample it down,…
- Daniel 7:7–8
  After this, as I watched in my vision in the night, suddenly a fourth beast appeared, and it was terrifying—dreadful and extremely strong—with large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed; then it trampled underfoot…
Through
Daniel 7:24
And the ten horns are ten kings who will rise from this kingdom. After them another king, different from the earlier ones, will rise and subdue three kings.
leads to
- Daniel 7:20
  I also wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell—the horn whose appearance was more imposing than the others,…
- Daniel 11:36
  Then the king will do as he pleases and will exalt and magnify himself above every god, and he will speak monstrous things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the…
- Revelation 13:1
  Then I saw a beast with ten horns and seven heads rising out of the sea. There were ten royal crowns on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.

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