2012 is here. So is it the end of the world? Who knows? Maybe the Mayan calendar that has correctly predicted the dates for 5125 long years is telling the truth. The calendar ends on December 21, 2012. May be we would be required to brace ourselves for some cataclysmic events on this particular day.
Leaving aside the Mayan calendar, wasn’t the end of the world predicted in ancient Babylon as well? It was more than 2600 years ago. Ancient Babylon ushered the most under the rule of their king Nebuchadnezzar. Babylon was at the height of all glory, prosperity, power and wealth. This made Nebuchadnezzar proud of himself and he got himself a golden statue that depicted him as the God.
Sure enough God decided to teach the king a lesson and they sent their message to the king. It was not long enough before the king had a strange, mysterious dream. The very next day Nebuchadnezzar sent for his magicians, astrologers, soothsayers and his other spiritual advisors with a hope that someone might reveal the true nature of the dream.
But each and everyone failed to get the real message of the dream that was dreamt by the greatest king of ancient Babylon. Later a young man named Daniel came to the king and asked for three days time to get the meaning of the dream. Daniel prayed before the Almighty to expose the underlying meaning of the dream so that it becomes possible for him to interpret the dream before the king.
Three days later Daniel visited Nebuchadnezzar and told him that God had indeed revealed the fate of the world before Nebuchadnezzar. And the fate results in the end of the world. The dream that the king saw was that of a great statue standing before him. It had the head made up of pure gold. The upper portion of its body i.e. the chest and the arms were made of silver. The abdomen region i.e. the belly and the thighs were made up of brass. The lower portion of its body i.e. the legs were made of iron while the feet were made of a mixture of clay and iron. Then a stone that was cut out of a mountain without hands fell and it landed on the feet thus crushing the whole statue. Everything reduced to simple dust and the dust was carried away by the wind. The stone then grew to become a great mountain and filled the whole Earth.
According to Daniel’s interpretation, the golden head represented the power of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar and his golden rule over ancient Babylon. The silver torso indicated that after the Babylonians a new kingdom will rule the land but then this kingdom will be inferior to that of the Babylonians. This prophecy came true when the combined armies of Medes and Persians took control over Babylon. The two arms signified the Medes and the Persians respectively.
The belly and the thighs made of bronze indicated that there would be another powerful kingdom, far inferior to the Med-Persians and the Babylonians but it will rule over the whole Earth. This came true when the Greeks started their conquest under their able general Alexander the Great and within a short span of time a large number of countries came under the control of the Greco-Macedonians. The Greek warriors were known to have used bronze shields at the battlefields which were believed to have given them upper hands.
Next were the legs of the statue that were made of iron. What Daniel foretold was that there would be a fourth kingdom that would be as strong as iron. Incidentally, Rome was known by another name, “Iron Monarchy”. Going by the two legs of the statue it can be seen that Rome was founded by twin brothers, the Roman Empire was divided between Western Empire and the Eastern i.e. Byzantine Empire. There was always a conflict between Papal Rome and Pagan Rome.
The feet of iron and clay signified that the kingdom would remain partly strong and partly broken. In reality the once strong Roman Empire got broken into the many countries of Europe like England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland. The toes of the feet signified ten European nations. Of these nations some were strong and the others were weak. Countries like Egypt, Iraq (ancient Babylon) or Iran (ancient Persia) could never become large empires again.
If all these prophecies that were once made in ancient Babylon came true this means the day is not far when the whole statue will tumble and come down only to turn to dust and get blown away by wind. Does that mean the end of the world as we all know it? Is it going to be the end of entire human race? The stone that will bring down the statue is symbol of God’s kingdom that will grow only after all the other kingdoms have vanished.
It is said that the fall of Babylon in 539 BC became a symbol of the forthcoming collapse of the future kingdoms and the oncoming of the kingdom of God. How is it even possible that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of ancient Babylon saw a night’s dream that revealed before him the future of entire mankind as a whole? How it could be that Daniel the prophet had the ability to see exactly what would befall on men in the upcoming centuries? Clearly he had a divine intervention just like God intervened when He sent out his message to Nebuchadnezzar through a dream about the future of mankind.
The most interesting aspect about this dream from ancient Babylon is that each and every phase of the dream can be related to major incidents that helped in shaping of the history of mankind. Even each and every minute detail of the statue can be attributed to incidents that took place around the world. So if these things did take place chances are high that even the last prophecy might turn out to be true. So is 2012 really going to be the end of the world? Well to get that answer we have to wait till December 21, 2012 arrives.