Out of the Miry Clay

In Daniel’s dream, a great image stands on feet of iron and clay. Many read the clay as just weakness. But Daniel calls it two things: “potters’ clay” and “miry clay.” The Bible tells us whose clay it is, and where the mire comes from. And it tells us how God gets His people out.

Daniel 2:41-43

“And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. … And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.”

Daniel 2:41, 43

The iron is the fourth kingdom (Daniel 2:40). Mixed into it is clay. The clay belongs to a potter. The clay is full of mire, which is mud. They are mixed “with the seed of men.” And they never hold together.

Isaiah 64:6-8 and Jeremiah 18:4-6

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags… But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.”

Isaiah 64:6, 8

“And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.”

Jeremiah 18:4

Who is the Potter? The LORD. Who is the clay? His people. And look: He calls it His clay while it is still unclean. When the vessel is spoiled, He does not throw the clay away. He makes it again. God takes the mire out of the clay so He can work with it. I am that clay. He claimed me before I was clean.

Isaiah 57:20

“But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.”

Isaiah 57:20

Here is where the mire comes from. The wicked are a restless sea, and it throws up mire. The word for mire here and in Daniel is one and the same. So the feet stand on the Potter’s clay, mixed with the mire of the wicked sea.

Matthew 13:30, 38

“The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;”

Matthew 13:38

“Let both grow together until the harvest”

Matthew 13:30

Daniel said the mixing is by seed. Jesus shows a field with two seeds in it, growing together until the harvest. The Bible does not say the clay is the wheat and the mire is the tares. But it is the same kind of mixture.

Revelation 17:15-16

“The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.”

Revelation 17:15-16

A woman sits on the waters, the sea of peoples. She rides the beast, the power of the kingdom. And they do not hold together: the horns turn on her. Daniel showed iron and clay. Revelation shows the beast and the woman, a religious body joined to the power of the world. The same mixture, and it breaks.

Jeremiah 51:26, 42, 45, 63-64

“And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations… The sea is come up upon Babylon… My people, go ye out of the midst of her… Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise”

Jeremiah 51:26, 42, 45, 64

Babylon has no stone to build on. The sea comes up over her. God calls His people out of her. And she sinks. Everything in this chain is in this one chapter.

Revelation 18:4, 21

“Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

Revelation 18:4

“And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.”

Revelation 18:21

God has “my people” inside Babylon. Babylon is not every person in her. The Potter still knows His clay in the mire. Then Babylon ends in the sea she sat on.

Psalm 69:2, 14

“I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. … Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink”

Psalm 69:2, 14

This is what mire is: “no standing.” I have known that feeling, of trying to stand where nothing holds. The only help is to be taken out.

Psalm 40:2-3

“He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.”

Psalm 40:2-3

Here is the whole chain in one verse. Out of the miry clay. Feet on a rock. A new song. And notice: feet. The image in Daniel stands on feet in miry clay. God takes His servant’s feet out of it and sets them on a rock.

1 Corinthians 10:4 and 3:11

“and that Rock was Christ.”

1 Corinthians 10:4

“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 3:11

The Rock has a name. God does not call me out of one human mixture into another. He calls me out onto Christ, the only foundation. “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his” (2 Timothy 2:19). He washes the mire out of His vessels, so they are “meet for the master’s use” (2 Timothy 2:21).

Revelation 14:1-3

“And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand… And they sung as it were a new song before the throne”

Revelation 14:1, 3

Psalm 40 again, in the same order: standing on the mountain, then the new song. The mountain is Daniel’s stone, which “became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Daniel 2:35).

Revelation 17:1-3 and 21:9-10

“Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters… So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness”

Revelation 17:1, 3

“Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain”

Revelation 21:9-10

The same angel, the same words, two women on two grounds. One sits on the waters. The other is shown from a mountain, a city with twelve foundations.

Revelation 15:2-3

“and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb.”

Revelation 15:2-3

The end. Those who came out stand, on a sea made firm as glass, where the sea had been the place of no standing. And they sing.

What this means

The miry clay is the Potter’s clay mixed with the mire of the wicked sea. It is the mixed religious body that rides the power of the world and never holds to it. God calls His own people out of it onto the Rock. The answer is never a better footing inside the mire. It is “Come out of her, my people.”

The image stands in the miry clay. God’s people are taken out of it and stand on the Rock. He brought me up, set my feet on Christ, and put a new song in my mouth.

Road to Eternal Life