Daniel 2:34
Daniel 2:3434As you watched, a stone was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them.
The Watchtower reads through the 1914 lens. The stone "cut out, not by hands" is the Messianic Kingdom established in heaven in October 1914. The "striking" of the image is the as-yet- future Armageddon destruction of human governments. The chronological hinge is the 2,520-year Gentile Times calculation from 607 BCE.
Read the imagery itself: a stone cut out by no human hand, striking the image on its feet, then growing into a mountain that fills the whole earth (v.35). Two stages — a strike, then progressive growth. The stone does not arrive already the size of a mountain. The New Testament identifies the striking moment with Christ's first advent: "the Kingdom of God has come near" (), "the Kingdom of God is in your midst" (). The stone was cut out and struck at the Incarnation; the mountain has been growing since Pentecost. Jesus's own kingdom parables — mustard seed becoming a tree (), leaven working through the whole lump () — match Daniel's growth imagery exactly. A mustard seed is not a lightning bolt. Leaven is not an earthquake. The Kingdom arrives small and expands.