"Such was the dream, and we will now tell the king its meaning. You, O king -- king of kings, to whom the God of Heaven has given kingdom, power, might, and glory; into whose hands He has given men, wild beasts, and the fowl of heaven, wherever they may dwell; and to whom He has given dominion over them all -- you are the head of gold. But another kingdom will arise after you, inferior to yours; then yet a third kingdom, of bronze, which will rule over the whole earth. But the fourth kingdom will be as strong as iron; just as iron crushes and shatters everything -- and like iron that smashes -- so will it crush and smash all these. You saw the feet and the toes, part potter's clay and part iron; that means it will be a divided kingdom; it will have only some of the stability of iron, inasmuch as you saw iron mixed with common clay. And the toes were part iron and part clay; that means the kingdom will be in part strong and in part brittle. You saw iron mixed with common clay; that means: they shall intermingle with the offspring of men, but shall not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. And in the time of those kings, the God of Heaven will establish a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, a kingdom that shall not be transferred to another people. It will crush and wipe out all these kingdoms, but shall itself last forever--just as you saw how a stone was hewn from the mountain, not by hands, and crushed the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. The great God has made known to the king what will happen in the future. The dream is sure and its interpretation reliable." Then King Nebuchadnezzar prostrated himself and paid homage to Daniel and ordered that a meal offering and pleasing offerings be made to him. The king said in reply to Daniel, "Truly your God must be the God of gods and Lord of kings and the revealer of mysteries to have enabled you to reveal this mystery." (Dan 2:36-47 | 1985 JPS Tanakh)
Commenting on this text, Brian D. Stubbs wrote:
Those who believe in the Bible, but rail against Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, ought to consider Daniel 2:36-47? Daniel interpreted the king’s dream as a history of worldly power and the end of such power: the king of Babylon was the head of gold, then comes a chest of Silver (Persia, Cyrus conquered Babylon), then a torso of brass (the Greeks defeated the Persians), then legs of iron (Rome followed Greece in ruling the known world), and Rome ruled like iron. Then at the bottom of the legs come the feet and ten toes of iron-clay mixture, half strong and half weak, and 10 simply signifies many smaller nations, not necessarily 10; the nations that descend from the Roman Empire broke up into many smaller nations. Then comes the rock cut out of the mountains without hands, meaning God does it, not man’s hands, and it is IN THE DAYS of the toes or the many kingdoms, in the latter day, Daniel says, “shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom” (Daniel 2:44). Yet the church in New Testament times does NOT fit, because it is right in the middle of Rome’s power. Only a latter-day work coming about by the power of God can qualify, and a perfect fit is the Book of Mormon coming forth by the power of God and the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ in the latter days. Anything not coming by the power of God cannot be what Daniel 2 refers to, yet that is the main criticism of the Book of Mormon, the claim that it came by the power of God. If God has already done His work, as many other Christian churches profess, what do they expect Daniel 2 to refer to? The Book of Mormon fits well the time-frame of Daniel 2, in the days of the many kingdoms, long after Rome’s rule of iron. The Book of Mormon clarifies many disagreements among factions who ‘honor Him with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him’ as both Isaiah (29:13) and Christ said (Matthew 15:8; Mark 7:6; Joseph Smith History 1:19). It is God’s work that will fill the earth and break the image representing the less-than-godly ruling powers, though turbulence will continue in the meantime. (Brian D. Stubbs, Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now [Blanding, Utah: Four Corners Digital Design, 2016], 27-28; emphasis in original)
As an aside, some critics (e.g., Jeff Durbin) appeal to other texts in the book of Daniel, such as Dan 7:13-14 against LDS claims to Apostasy and Restoration. For a refutation, see the section "Daniel 7:13-14 and the Kingdom of God" in Refuting Jeff Durbin on "Mormonism"
