דניאל, פרק ב׳, פסוק ל״ד

The vision in the dream suddenly shifts from a static, threatening statue to a scene of rapid and dramatic destruction. The force that brings down this massive structure does not come from any human effort, but rather from a mysterious source that targets the monument's exact weak point. As Daniel speaks to the king, he brings back the most crucial and terrifying part of the dream that had slipped from the king's memory. While the king perfectly recalled the shape of the massive statue, he had completely forgotten the sudden appearance of a stone. It was this specific, forgotten detail that had originally filled him with such intense anxiety [מלבי״ם].

Daniel describes how the king was staring intently at the menacing figure [ביאור שטיינזלץ] when, without warning, a single stone was cut and separated from a larger rock [רש״י, יוסף אבן יחיא]. This dramatic severing of the stone is compared to the splitting of the Red Sea [אבן עזרא]. The most striking feature of this event is that the stone broke free entirely on its own. The primary approach among commentators is that no human hands quarried the rock or threw it; it moved and detached through an independent, miraculous force.

Continuing its flight, this wondrous stone hurtled toward the statue. It bypassed the rest of the massive figure and landed a precise, devastating blow directly on its feet, which were forged from a fragile mixture of iron and clay. The impact was so fierce that the stone completely crushed, ground down, and shattered the base of the statue into pieces [רש״י, יוסף אבן יחיא, ביאור שטיינזלץ].