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In the biblical account, the king sees an enormous human-shaped image composed of several materials. A stone “cut out without hands” strikes its feet, destroys the image, and grows into a mountain filling the earth.

Sims follows a traditional conservative Protestant prophecy interpretation:

The dates and names printed beside the statue on your cover—such as “Babylon,” “Medo-Persia,” “Grecia,” “Pagan Rome,” and “Papal Rome”—show that Sims connects Daniel’s prophecy with successive historical empires. He appears to extend the prophecy through Roman and papal history and into expected end-times events.

The “stone that smote it” is interpreted as Christ’s kingdom overcoming every human empire. The book’s purpose is therefore both prophetic and evangelistic: it argues that worldly governments are temporary, Christ will return, and God’s kingdom will ultimately prevail. A 1934 religious advertisement described the booklet as explaining the “beginning, development and end” of Gentile world power. Word and Work archive

Is it rare?

It is best described as scarce rather than extremely rare.

Few copies appear in ordinary online searches, probably because it was an inexpensive religious pamphlet intended for study and distribution. Pamphlets frequently disappeared because their paper covers wore out or owners discarded them. However, scarcity does not automatically produce a high price: collector demand for A. Sims appears limited, and this is the fourth edition, not the first.

An important clue is that it originally sold very cheaply. A 1938 religious catalog offered Daniel’s Prophetic Image for approximately 25 cents. The title’s survival value today comes mainly from its age, unusual cover illustration, early prophecy teaching, and association with early Zondervan publishing—not from great literary fame.

Estimated value

Available dealer evidence includes:

• A bookseller listing for a 1925 fourth edition
  at $12. A Squared Books
• A 2013 catalog offered a 1932, 56-page copy
  with foxing and worn wrappers for $5. Windows Books catalog
• Amazon records the 1925 Zondervan edition, but an
  Amazon listing alone does not establish what buyers actually pay. Amazon edition record

Based on those comparisons:

From the photograph, your copy appears to be in fair condition. The cover has corner loss, spine and edge wear, creasing, discoloration, small stains, and a penciled “25.” Assuming all 56 pages are present and firmly attached, I would estimate its practical selling value at approximately $8–$18, perhaps listing it around $20–$25 and accepting a lower offer.

To identify and value it more precisely, photographs of the title page, copyright page, back cover, spine, and several interior pages would be necessary. Those would confirm the publication date, publisher, pagination, completeness, and whether this is exactly the 1925 Zondervan fourth edition.

go into detail what this book is about and how it relates to the United States

What the book teaches

A. Sims’s Daniel’s Prophetic Image and the Stone That Smote It is a short evangelical study of Daniel chapter 2, supplemented by ideas drawn from Daniel 7 and the Book of Revelation. Its central message is that human empires rise and fall according to God’s larger plan, but God’s kingdom will finally replace every political system.

An important limitation: I have identified the edition and its general interpretation from the cover, catalog descriptions, and period advertisements, but I have not located a complete digital copy. Therefore, the discussion below distinguishes:

• what Daniel 2 explicitly says;
• what Sims’s cover and publishing context indicate
  that he taught;
• and how American prophecy interpreters commonly
  applied the teaching to the United States.

A complete page-by-page report would require photographs or scans of the booklet’s interior.

The biblical story behind the book

Daniel 2 places the story during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon. The king has a disturbing dream and demands that his wise men not merely interpret it but first tell him what he dreamed. They cannot do so.

Daniel prays with his companions, and God reveals both the dream and its meaning. Daniel tells the king that he saw a gigantic statue:

• its head was gold;
• its chest and arms were silver;
• its belly and thighs were bronze or brass;
• its legs were iron;
• and its feet were a mixture of iron and clay.

Then a stone “cut out without hands” struck the feet. The statue collapsed, and all its materials were carried away. The stone became a great mountain that filled the earth. Daniel 2

The image represents a succession of earthly kingdoms. Unlike those temporary governments, the stone represents a kingdom established by God that will never be destroyed.

The kingdoms in Sims’s interpretation

The labels printed directly on this copy’s cover reveal Sims’s basic outline:

This is generally called the traditional Christian or historicist interpretation: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, divided Rome, and finally the kingdom of God. Many conservative Christians still follow this sequence. Crossway’s explanation

Some modern biblical scholars use a different sequence—Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece—placing the prophecy’s immediate climax around the persecution conducted by Antiochus IV in the second century B.C. That is an important scholarly distinction, because Sims is presenting one theological interpretation, not the only interpretation ever proposed.

1. The head of gold: Babylon

Daniel explicitly tells Nebuchadnezzar, “You are that head of gold.”

Gold represents Babylon’s splendor, wealth, centralized authority, and imperial greatness. Babylon was renowned for its monumental architecture, temples, walls, and royal power. But the point is not merely that Babylon was impressive. It is that even the most magnificent human empire remains temporary.

For Sims, Babylon probably functions in two ways:

1. It is the historical Babylonian Empire.

2. It is the beginning of a pattern of human government built on power, pride, wealth, and rebellion against God.

That second meaning allows prophecy writers to use “Babylon” more broadly. Revelation later employs “Babylon” as a symbol of a corrupt political, economic, and religious order. That does not prove that Babylon means the United States, but it permits Christians to ask whether any modern nation—including America—can display Babylon-like qualities.

2. The silver kingdom: Medo-Persia

The chest and two arms represent the Medes and Persians, who conquered Babylon. The two arms provide an appealing visual parallel with the two peoples joined within the empire, although Daniel itself does not explicitly explain the arms that way.

Silver is less valuable than gold, yet the Medo-Persian Empire controlled more territory. Therefore, the decreasing value of the metals does not necessarily mean that every succeeding empire was smaller or militarily weaker. Sims likely regarded it as indicating deterioration in the character, unity, or quality of human government.

This creates one of the book’s likely themes: material progress does not necessarily equal spiritual progress.

3. The brass kingdom: Greece

The bronze or brass portion represents the Greek or Macedonian Empire established by Alexander the Great. Alexander conquered Persia rapidly and spread Greek language and culture over a vast area.

After Alexander’s death, his empire divided among successors. Prophecy interpreters frequently connect that division with Daniel’s later visions, especially the four-headed leopard in Daniel 7 and the divided horns of Daniel 8.

For Sims, Greece demonstrates both the speed of imperial conquest and the inability of a brilliant ruler to create a permanent kingdom.

4. The legs of iron: pagan Rome

Iron symbolizes strength, discipline, military force, and the ability to crush opposition. In Sims’s traditional interpretation, this is the Roman Empire.

The two legs have been interpreted in several ways:

• the eastern and western portions of the Roman
  Empire;
• Rome’s lengthy divided development;
• or simply the natural form of the statue, without
  a separate prophetic meaning.

Sims evidently carried the Roman period forward into later European history. The significance is that Rome was not treated as entirely disappearing. Its legal ideas, political institutions, religious authority, and successor states continued after the Western Roman Empire fell.

5. The feet of iron and clay

This is one of the book’s most important sections because it connects ancient history with the author’s own time.

The feet retain some iron, meaning that something of Rome’s strength and heritage remains. But iron mixed with clay produces a structure that is internally unstable. Daniel calls it a divided kingdom: partly strong and partly brittle.

Sims probably applied this to the divided nations that developed in the old Roman world. Prophecy writers have commonly interpreted it as a picture of Europe after Rome:

• nations repeatedly attempt political unity;
• alliances and royal marriages attempt to bind
  them together;
• strong governments coexist with weak ones;
• but no lasting unified Roman Empire is restored.

The ten toes are frequently treated as ten kingdoms, although Daniel 2 never explicitly says that each toe equals a particular nation. The ten-king interpretation is produced by reading Daniel 2 alongside the ten horns in Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 and 17.

Over the years, writers have proposed changing lists of ten European countries. Such lists should be treated cautiously. Europe’s borders and political memberships have repeatedly changed, and the biblical text does not name ten modern states.

Why “pagan Rome” and “papal Rome” appear on the cover

Your copy’s cover is especially interesting because it labels both “Pagan Rome” and “Papal Rome.” Sims apparently believed that Rome continued in two phases:

1. Pagan or imperial Rome: the ancient state ruled by emperors.

2. Papal Rome: a later religious-political system centered on the authority of the Roman Catholic papacy.

This interpretation was common among historicist Protestants. They believed that after Rome’s imperial structure weakened, a religious form of Roman authority continued through the papacy.

That interpretation is a Protestant theological claim, not a neutral historical conclusion accepted by Catholics or all biblical scholars. Catholic interpreters reject the identification of the papacy with an evil prophetic power. Even among Protestants, futurists generally expect a future Antichrist, while preterists connect much of the imagery with events in antiquity.

Sims also wrote booklets titled The Harlot Woman, The Great Tribulation, and Satan’s Last Dread Counterfeit. That publishing pattern shows that he connected Daniel with Revelation and interpreted history as moving toward a final confrontation between Christ and an Antichrist system. A 1938 Pentecostal catalog advertised these works together. Pentecostal Evangel archive

The stone that destroys the image

The title places special emphasis on the stone because it is the book’s ultimate subject.

The stone is “cut out without hands,” meaning its origin is divine rather than human. It does not merely repair the statue or become another metal in it. It strikes the feet and causes the entire image to collapse.

This carries several theological meanings:

• God’s kingdom is not created by military conquest
  or ordinary politics.
• All human empires are ultimately accountable to
  God.
• Earlier empires remain part of one continuous
  system of human dominion.
• Political strength cannot prevent divine
  judgment.
• Christ’s kingdom will be universal and permanent.

Christians disagree over when the stone kingdom begins:

• Some say it began with Christ’s first coming and
  the growth of Christianity.
• Others say it represents Christ’s future Second
  Coming.
• Some combine the two: the kingdom began
  spiritually through Christ and will be completed visibly at his return.

Sims’s prophecy-oriented publications suggest that he probably emphasized the future, visible triumph of Christ.

How the book relates to the United States

The United States is not named in Daniel 2

The most important factual point is this:

Neither Daniel 2 nor the statue on Sims’s cover explicitly identifies the United States.

America cannot be directly equated with Babylon, Rome, the clay, one of the toes, or the stone merely from the text. Anyone making one of those identifications is adding an interpretation beyond what Daniel specifically says.

The United States was founded more than two thousand years after Nebuchadnezzar. Therefore, a connection must be made by analogy, by tracing Rome’s political legacy, or by combining Daniel with other prophetic passages.

1. America as an heir of the Western political world

Although the United States is not geographically part of the ancient Roman Empire, its institutions were influenced by the classical world:

• the idea of a republic;
• a senate;
• written law;
• civic citizenship;
• representative government;
• Greek and Roman political philosophy;
• and architectural symbols modeled after Greece
  and Rome.

The United States Capitol, Senate, republican terminology, and classical imagery all reveal this influence. In that broad cultural sense, America belongs to the Western civilization that inherited parts of Greece and Rome.

That does not prove that America is one of the statue’s toes. It means America developed within a political and intellectual tradition partly descended from the civilizations symbolized by the statue.

2. America and the iron-and-clay condition

The iron-and-clay image can be applied morally to the United States, although this is an application rather than an identification.

America possesses “iron-like” qualities:

• enormous military power;
• economic influence;
• technological capacity;
• strong federal institutions;
• and worldwide political reach.

It also displays “clay-like” fragility:

• political polarization;
• racial and economic divisions;
• distrust of government;
• conflict between federal and state power;
• cultural fragmentation;
• and disagreements about religion and national
  identity.

A preacher using Sims’s framework might say America is simultaneously powerful and internally divided—strong like iron but fragile like clay. That can be a meaningful sermon illustration, but Daniel 2:41–43 does not specifically predict American polarization.

3. America as part of the final world order

Futurist interpreters sometimes argue that America must participate in the final international system because it is a major world power. Suggested possibilities include:

• America remains influential but joins a larger
  coalition.
• American authority declines while Europe or
  another alliance rises.
• America supports a final world ruler without
  being separately symbolized.
• America becomes economically or militarily
  weakened before the final crisis.

These are speculative possibilities. The silence of Daniel 2 about America does not prove that the United States must disappear, nor does it prove that it will dominate the end times.

4. The idea that America is one of the ten toes

Some prophecy teachers identify the ten toes with ten modern nations or political regions. Under that theory, America is sometimes placed within a broader Western or revived Roman alliance.

There are significant problems with this:

• Daniel does not individually identify the toes.
• America was never a province of ancient Rome.
• Proposed lists of ten nations continually change.
• Modern alliances rarely remain limited to exactly
  ten members.
• Sims’s cover appears to place the feet primarily
  within divided Roman and European history.

Therefore, the claim that the United States is definitely one of the ten toes is not established by the book’s cover or by Daniel 2.

5. America and “Babylon”

Some American prophecy writers identify the United States with the end-time “Babylon” of Revelation because of its wealth, global commerce, military power, cultural influence, and moral problems.

That connection comes chiefly from Revelation 17–18, not from Daniel’s original head of gold. Several different identifications have historically been proposed for Revelation’s Babylon:

• ancient Rome;
• the Roman imperial system;
• papal or ecclesiastical Rome;
• a future literal Babylon;
• a worldwide commercial system;
• or, in some modern interpretations, the United
  States.

Sims’s labeling of the statue makes it more likely that he associated the later corrupt system with Rome or papal Rome, rather than directly calling the United States Babylon. Without the interior text, however, that cannot be stated conclusively.

6. America, church, and state

Because Sims appears to have opposed papal political power, the book would have resonated strongly in an America that prized Protestantism and separation between church and state.

Applied to the United States, its warning would be:

• religious institutions should not use government
  coercion;
• government should not claim divine authority for
  its policies;
• political loyalty must not replace faith in God;
• and Christians should not mistake America for
  God’s eternal kingdom.

This last point is especially important. In Daniel 2, no human nation is the stone. Not Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Britain, or the United States. Under the Christian interpretation, the stone is God’s kingdom established through Christ.

Therefore, the book cannot properly be used to teach that America itself will become the kingdom that destroys all others.

7. America and the temptation of empire

Sims’s larger lesson can be applied to the United States in a challenging way. Every empire represented in the image probably considered itself powerful, exceptional, and enduring. Nevertheless, each passed away.

For Americans, the warning would be that:

• military superiority does not make a nation
  permanent;
• wealth does not guarantee moral righteousness;
• national success is not proof of divine approval;
• political leaders remain accountable to God;
• and no constitution or government can eliminate
  human pride and corruption.

In this reading, Daniel does not single out America for either special condemnation or guaranteed protection. America stands under the same judgment as every other nation.

The historical importance of its 1920s setting

The identified fourth edition dates to approximately 1925, between World War I and the Great Depression. That historical setting helps explain the booklet’s appeal.

Readers had recently witnessed:

• the destruction of several European empires
  during World War I;
• the Russian Revolution and rise of communism;
• continued political instability in Europe;
• growing concern about another international war;
• the expansion of mass industry and technology;
• and debates about immigration, Catholic political
  influence, modernism, and biblical authority in America.

For such readers, the iron-and-clay feet seemed to describe a powerful but unstable civilization. America was prosperous in 1925, yet prophecy teachers warned that prosperity could not guarantee security. Within only a few years, the Great Depression and the rise of fascist regimes made that message seem even more urgent.

A 1935 advertisement described Sims’s booklet as being full of “momentous truths” and placed it beside books about world changes, Christ’s return, Antichrist, and the Millennium. That establishes the kind of end-times setting in which it was read. 1935 Pentecostal Evangel advertisement

The soundest conclusion

The book’s relationship to the United States is principally a warning and moral application, not a direct prophetic identification.

Its message for America would be:

The United States may be powerful and may inherit parts of the Greek and Roman political tradition, but it is still a temporary human government. It must not confuse national power with God’s kingdom. Like every nation, it can become divided, corrupt, proud, or oppressive. The permanent kingdom symbolized by the stone belongs to God—not to America or any other earthly empire.

Claims that America is definitely Babylon, a particular toe, or a named kingdom in Daniel 2 go beyond what can be demonstrated from the biblical text—and, based on the available evidence, beyond what can presently be proven about Sims’s booklet.