Part 2 · Daniel 7: The Four Beasts and the Little Horn
Part 2 of 3 · Daniel and Revelation
In Daniel 7 (KJV) four beasts rise from the sea: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. From the fourth comes a little horn, a religious and political power that rules for 1260 years. Then the judgment sits in heaven, its dominion is taken away, and the kingdom is given to the saints of the Most High.
What Do the Four Beasts of Daniel 7 Represent?
What did Daniel see rising out of the great sea?
Verse: “Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.” (Daniel 7:2–3, KJV)
Explanation: In Part 1, Daniel 2: The Rise and Fall of World Empires, we saw the history of the world as a statue of four metals. Daniel 7 walks over the same ground and adds new detail. In prophecy winds picture strife and war (Jeremiah 49:36–37), and waters picture “peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” (Revelation 17:15, KJV). These powers rise out of the conflicts of the nations.
What do the four beasts stand for?
Verse: “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.” (Daniel 7:17, KJV)
Explanation: The angel explains the vision himself, so we are not left to guess. The beasts are four kings, and verse 23 calls the fourth beast “the fourth kingdom upon earth”, so king and kingdom are used here for the same thing. Four world empires would follow one another from Daniel’s day onward, just as the gold, silver, brass and iron of the statue did.
Which kingdom is the lion with eagle’s wings?
Verse: “The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.” (Daniel 7:4, KJV)
Explanation: The lion is Babylon, the head of gold, the empire ruling when Daniel wrote (605–539 BC). The prophets had already pictured Babylon as a lion (Jeremiah 4:7) and as swift as the eagle (Habakkuk 1:8). The plucked wings and the man’s heart show how its early speed and boldness were lost under its last kings.
Which kingdoms are the bear and the leopard?
Verse: “And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.” (Daniel 7:5–6, KJV)
Explanation: The bear is Medo-Persia (539–331 BC), raised up on one side because the Persians became stronger than the Medes; the three ribs fit its three great conquests, Lydia, Babylon and Egypt. The leopard with four wings is Greece under Alexander the Great, who conquered with a speed the world had never seen. After his death in 323 BC his empire was divided into four kingdoms under his generals, the four heads.
What is the dreadful fourth beast with iron teeth?
Verse: “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.” (Daniel 7:7, KJV)
Explanation: The kingdom that followed Greece was Rome, which overcame Macedonia in 168 BC and went on to rule the whole Mediterranean world. Its iron teeth match the iron legs of the statue. No animal is named for it, because nothing in nature could picture its crushing strength. It was Rome that ruled when Christ was born and when He was crucified.
Who Is the Little Horn of Daniel 7?
What do the ten horns of the fourth beast mean?
Verse: “And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.” (Daniel 7:24, KJV)
Explanation: Rome was never conquered by a fifth world empire. In the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ its western half broke up into separate kingdoms, such as the Franks, the Anglo-Saxons, the Visigoths and the Burgundians, the beginnings of the nations of Europe. After them another horn rises, and three fall before it. Historicist students of prophecy have long named the Heruli, the Vandals and the Ostrogoths, overthrown or driven from Rome between AD 493 and 538.
How does Daniel describe the little horn?
Verse: “I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.” (Daniel 7:8, KJV)
Explanation: The marks are plain. It rises out of the fourth beast, among the ten kingdoms of western Europe, after they appear; it uproots three; it is “diverse”, a religious power as well as a political one; and it has the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things, a power led by a man and making great claims. One power fits them all: the church-and-state system centred in Rome that ruled over kings and consciences through the Middle Ages. The Reformers of the sixteenth century read the prophecy this way. It describes a system; it does not judge the heart of any person, and God has sincere children in every communion.
What would the little horn do?
Verse: “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” (Daniel 7:25, KJV)
Explanation: Three acts are foretold. It would speak great words, claiming powers that belong to God alone, such as the forgiving of sins. It would wear out the saints, and for centuries those who held to the Bible alone were persecuted. It would think to change times and laws; the one commandment of God’s law that deals with time is the fourth, as we saw in The Sabbath and God's People in the Last Days. Notice the words “think to”: no power on earth can truly change the law of God.
How long is “a time and times and the dividing of time”?
Verse: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.” (Revelation 12:6, KJV; see also Revelation 12:14 and 13:5)
Explanation: Revelation gives the same period in three ways: a time, times and half a time, forty-two months, and 1260 days. In symbolic prophecy a day stands for a year: “I have appointed thee each day for a year” (Ezekiel 4:6, KJV). The 1260 years reach from AD 538, when the last of the three horns lost its hold on Rome and the emperor Justinian’s decree giving that system the headship of the churches could take effect, to 1798, when a French army entered Rome and carried its head away a prisoner.
How Does the Judgment of Daniel 7 End the Story?
What did Daniel see in heaven while the little horn was still speaking?
Verse: “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.” (Daniel 7:9–10, KJV)
Explanation: The scene moves from earth to heaven. Thrones are set in place, the Ancient of days, God the Father, takes His seat, and the books are opened. This judgment sits before Jesus returns, because the kingdom is given only after its verdict. It is the same work we studied in The Day of Atonement and the Judgment, and its time is given in The 2300 Days of Daniel 8:14.
Who comes before the Ancient of days in the judgment?
Verse: “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13–14, KJV)
Explanation: “Son of man” is the name Jesus most often used for Himself. Here He does not come to the earth but to the Father, to receive the kingdom for His people. The court where our cases are heard is the court where our Advocate stands. For everyone who trusts in Him, the judgment is good news.
What is the final verdict of the heavenly court?
Verse: “But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” (Daniel 7:26–27, KJV)
Explanation: The verdict falls two ways. The dominion of the little horn is taken away, and the kingdom is given to the saints, the very people it wore out. Verse 22 says that judgment was given “to the saints of the most High”, that is, in their favour. The vision ends where the stone of Daniel 2 ended: every human kingdom passes away, and the kingdom of God stands for ever.
Conclusion & Personal Appeal
Daniel 7 was not written to make us afraid of beasts, but to show us who sits on the throne. Four empires rose and fell exactly as God had said. A proud power held the saints in its hand for the time allotted to it and not a day longer. And the court of heaven has the last word. The prophecy points at a system, never at people, and it puts one question to each of us: whose word rules my life, the word of man or the word of God? Today the Son of man stands for you before the Ancient of days. Will you give Him your case, your loyalty and your heart, and take your place among the people to whom the kingdom is promised?
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