In the second part of the book are four visions, or revelations, which stand in chronological order (according to the author's chronology): c. 7 in the first year of Belshazzar; c. 8 in his third year; c. 9 in the first year of "Darius son of Xerxes, of the race of the Medes"--not properly a vision, but a revelation by Gabriel; and cc. 10-12 in the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia. By the side of these must be put Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Dan. ii. 28-45 (second year of Nebuchadnezzar), which, in its four-empire scheme, corresponds to Daniel's vision in c. 7. The interpretations which Daniel gives to Nebuchadnezzar or the angel gives to Daniel, though sometimes surrounded with an impressive air of mystery, give all the necessary clues to the understanding of the visions, and obscure allusions are often made plain by a more explicit parallel. Under fantastic and varied imagery, they unroll the history of the empires which succeed one another in the dominion of the world, from the Babylonian (Dan. 2 and 7), or the Medo-Persian (c. 8), or Persian (cc. 10-12)--that is from the assumed standpoint of Daniel--through the dominion of Alexander and the kingdoms into which his empire was broken up, ending always with the reign of Antiochus IV. (175-164 B.C.). The goal in them all is the destruction of the heathen power and the establishment of the eternal kingdom of the holy people of the Most High, otherwise, the Jews. The simplest form of this scheme is Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Dan. 2. The image with head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet part of iron and part of clay, stands for four empires in a scale of deterioration, like the four ages of Hesiod, beginning with the Babylonian, represented by Nebuchadnezzar himself. This is followed by an inferior kingdom, and that by a third universal empire; the destructive strength of the fourth is figured by iron which shatters all that it smites; the feet and toes signify a divided kingdom, in part strong as iron, in part brittle as pottery. The stone which smote the image on the feet and broke them to pieces, whereupon the whole image collapsed into dust and was whirled away by the wind, while the stone grew to a great mountain and filled all the earth, is the kingdom which the God of heaven shall establish in those days, "which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people, but it shall break in pieces and annihilate all those empires, and it shall stand forever."