“statue.” Although many English versions read “image,” that gives the wrong impression to the reader. The Aramaic word is tselem (#06755 צֶלֶם), and what Nebuchadnezzar saw was not an “image” in the modern sense of an image in a mirror or in one’s mind, but an “image” of something in the sense that an idol is an “image” of a god, a physical representation of a god. What Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream was a statue, in this case, a statue—a physical representation—that represented the timeline of future kingdoms.