This brief revelation makes two important connections to earlier dispensations. First, Joseph Smith is told that he has been given the “keys of the kingdom,” a reference to a similar incident in the New Testament in which Peter was told he would receive “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:19). A revelation given just a few months later in March 1832 confirmed that Joseph was given the “keys of the kingdom which belong always to the Presidency of the High Priesthood” (D&C 81:2). In a history written in the summer of 1832, Joseph Smith also wrote of “the keys of the Kingdom of God” being conferred upon him (Joseph Smith—History, circa Summer 1832, 1, JSP).

Second, this revelation declares that a prophecy made by the prophet Daniel is about to be fulfilled in the restoration of the kingdom of God in the latter days through the work of Joseph Smith and others. This prophecy of Daniel came when King Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of Babylon, received a dream that greatly troubled him. In the dream Nebuchadnezzar saw a “great image” with a head made of gold, breast and arms made of silver, a belly and thighs made of brass, legs of iron, and feet of iron and clay. Then the king saw a stone “cut out without hands” that “smote the image upon his feet that were iron and clay, and brake them to pieces,” destroying rest of the image. The stone the grew in size to become “a great mountain and filled the whole earth” (Daniel 2:31–35).

In interpretation of this dream, Daniel explained to the king that the image represented different kingdoms of the earth. The head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom, while the parts of the statue made of silver, brass, iron, and clay represented inferior kingdoms that were to follow. As for the stone that destroyed the image, Daniel declared that in the days of the kingdoms of iron and clay “shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever” (Daniel 2:37–44). This stone is the restored gospel.

While Daniel only makes known the identity of the golden head as the Babylonian Empire, Elder Orson Pratt interpreted the dream to include successive empires. He taught that the silver breast and arms represented the Medo-Persian Empire and that the belly of Brass represented the Macedonian Empire built by Alexander the Great. The legs of iron represented the Roman Empire, which was eventually split into two divisions, and in turn succeeded by the feet of clay and iron, representing the European kingdoms that ruled over much of the earth when the Restoration of the gospel began. Lastly, Elder Pratt taught that the “kingdom or stone cut out of the mountain without hands is a power superior to that of carnal weapons—the power of truth, for the kingdom of God cannot be organized on the earth without truth being sent down from heaven, without authority being given from the Most High” (Journal of Discourses, 15:72).