Charles Ellicott Commentary Daniel 2:37-38

"Thou, O king, art king of kings, unto whom the God of heaven hath given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory; and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens hath he given into thy hand, and hath made thee to rule over them all: thou art the head of gold." — Daniel 2:37-38 (ASV)

Interpretation of the vision. Nebuchadnezzar is the head; or, in other words, he is the first of the four kingdoms which are denoted by the image. His kingdom was the largest that the world had until then known. In fact, a writer cited by Josephus (Ap. i. 20) compares him to Hercules.

We find a similar allusion to the beasts of the field as Nebuchadnezzar’s servants (Jeremiah 27:6; Jeremiah 28:14). The title of “king of kings” is also ascribed to Nebuchadnezzar by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 26:7).

We are therefore left in no doubt as to what is meant by the first of the four empires. It is the Babylonian Empire, of which Nebuchadnezzar was in every sense the head, being its actual founder and its mainstay during his long reign of forty-three years.