Four Beasts

In the first year of Belshazzar the melek, Daniel saw a dream and visions in his mind as he lay on his bed. The four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea, and four different beasts came up from the sea. (7:1–3)

This brings us to the third pattern in the book. The second pattern was a progression from secular to spiritual in the revelations.(1) This happens in each time, and it also happens as we get through the book. Each new revelation has more spiritual content than the last. With the four beasts, we start seeing parallelism.

The four beasts are a different set of symbols for the same kingdoms Nebuchadnezzar saw in his statue.(2) This is a common biblical way of presenting the same idea in two different — “parallel” — ways.  Sometimes it’s just two lines that say the same thing with different words (cf. 1 Sam 2:3), or it can be more involved. In this case, the first beast is parallel to the head of gold; the second beast is parallel to the chest and arms of silver, and so on. You’ll need to follow me for a bit, because I’ve told you about the pattern, but I haven’t shown it from the text.

An angel explains that these four great beasts are four kings that arise from the earth (7:16–17).(3) It’s déjà vu all over again. There were four major kingdoms in chapter 2, and there are four major kingdoms in chapter 7.

The first beast was like a lion and had wings like an eagle (7:4a). This is Babylon. God describes Nebuchadnezzar as a lion and an eagle (Jer 49:19, 22). Winged lions were also a big part of Babylon’s royal heraldry, so this is a natural symbol for it. The eagle’s wings indicated the Babylonian army’s speedy conquests. It wasn’t as fast as Alexander the Great, but it didn’t waste any time, either.

It’s worth noticing that even in this political segment, there’s a spiritual undercurrent. This beast is a mix of two animals, a serious no-no in Torah (Lev 19:19). This emphasizes that it’s an evil power.

As I watched, its wings were pulled off and it was made to stand up like a man. A man’s mind was given to it (7:4b). After a few rapid victories, Babylon settled down, “fat, dumb, and happy.” The cunning that led to rapid wins was gone. Eventually it couldn’t even defend itself.

The language here deserves a comment. Babylon’s wings were pulled off, it was made to stand and a man’s mind was given to it. This means God made all these changes happen. But no Jew would ever use God’s name. It was too holy. So instead of saying, “Yahweh did it,” Daniel says, “. . . was made to happen.” This is called the “divine passive,” and gives credit to the One True God for controlling the progress of history, the same way he gave credit in 2:21.

The second beast was like a bear, raised up on one side, with three ribs in its mouth. It was told to “Arise, devour much meat!” (7:5). Medo-Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BC. The Persians were dominant, aptly symbolized by the bear being raised up on one side. The command to Arise, devour much meat shows that it would conquer large areas. The three ribs in its mouth symbolize the major areas it devoured — west to Babylon, north to Lydia, and south to Egypt.(4) Without wings it didn’t move as fast as Babylon did.

Daniel kept looking and saw a leopard with four wings and four heads. Dominion was given to it (7:6). Using the divine passive again, he records a brilliant symbolic picture of Greece conquering the known world. The evil leopard’s four wings show Alexander the Great moving his army faster than anyone in history. When he finished conquering the known world, he looked for something to keep his interest. Nothing inspired him, and he drank himself to death in 323 BC at the ripe old age of 32. His kingdom was splintered as his generals fought among themselves.(5) By 301 BC the division of his kingdom was complete.

The most stable partition is shown in the table. This matches the four heads on the leopard. But we have to remember that history isn’t just a snapshot. Several generals were killed in the struggle for power, leaving the four I’ve listed.(6) But even that wasn’t the final division.  Before long, Ptolemy and Seleucus were the only ones left standing. We’ll see their heirs in Daniel 11.
           
After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed, and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it; and behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth uttering great boasts. (7:7–8)

This beast was different. It didn’t resemble anything Daniel had ever seen, and it terrified him. But I doubt if he had any trouble identifying it, since the legs of iron in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream crushed and shattered all things. By using the same language in both visions, God made it clear this beast is Rome. But it wasn’t just Rome. It had bronze claws (7:19b). Greece was the bronze kingdom in the dream, and now it shows up as part of the iron kingdom. This reminds us that Rome absorbed Greece, which absorbed Medo-Persia, which absorbed Babylon — just like we said in the last chapter. Let me illustrate this.

In this picture, each fish gets eaten by a bigger fish. When the smaller fish is “gone,” it becomes part of the bigger fish. Rome “ate” Greece, which “ate” Medo-Persia, which “ate” Babylon. Each earlier kingdom “dies,” but continues within the later kingdom.

Daniel’s ready for details. He wants to know the exact meaning of the fourth beast (7:19a). The ten horns are ten kingdoms that rise out of the fourth beast (7:24a). This sounds like exactly ten. But things aren’t quite that simple.

When Daniel and his friends ate their vegetarian diet back in chapter 1, they ended up “ten times better” than all the other kids at Babylon U. That was a figure of speech that meant they were “a lot better.” It wasn’t an exact measurement.

Ten works the same way here. It’s a “round” number that can mean more than five or six, or up to a dozen or fifteen. This perfectly matches what happened when Rome broke up. There were a number of small countries. They were constantly at war with each other, and sometimes one would split apart while other times one would conquer another. The exact number of countries was constantly changing.(7)

While Daniel was contemplating the horns, a little horn came up among them that had eyes like a man (7:8b). It was different from the others (7:23) and became larger than the other horns (7:20). It boasted (7:8c, 11, 20), and made war with the saints (7:21). It tried to make changes in times and law (7:25).

This kingdom is different. Three horns are pulled out by the roots before it (7:8). Until now every kingdom did its own conquering. This one doesn’t. The Aramaic particle min tells us that while the little horn is the one who makes it happen, it gets somebody else to do its dirty work.

We have to be careful to avoid literalism. The fact that “ten” isn’t an exact number should tip us to the fact that “three” isn’t either. Instead, “three” points us to the Hebraic expression “third part of.” Daniel saw ten horns and three horns. But they represented “many” and “a third of them.” In other words, a substantial minority — more than a quarter, but less than half — of the fragments of the Empire would lose out to benefit the little horn. All the vision tells us about the timing is that they happen during the little horn’s career.

The saints will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time (7:25). This matches the pattern we talked about in the last chapter. The vision started out political as it moved from Babylon to Rome. Now in the fragments of Rome we have a spiritual power. That’s why it looks different. We need to find the power in the right era that was primarily spiritual, worked through other political powers, and made war against God’s faithful people (7:21). It also needs to claim to change God’s laws and appointed times.(8) Before we get into matching dates with the prophecy, we need to think about what the text really says. This isn’t the language of imperial succession.

It’s too easy to read verse 25 and look at the calendar. We can combine it with parallel prophecies in Revelation and calculate an “exact” length of time to match with history.(9) But the historical landmarks just won’t fit. That should wake us up. This part of the prophecy isn’t focused on politics.

We know that the power behind the little horn is Satan. The divine passive — was given — says that God gives the little horn authority over the saints for a set period. This means that God’s letting Satan have a bit more freedom with them than he had before. At the same time, we know from Revelation 12:6 that God will limit just how much Satan can do to them. As Satan works through his earthly agents, troubles come for the saints. But the trials don’t come all at once. And they don’t go away all at once. That’s why we have trouble finding exact dates.

Next, the little horn’s around while the other horns are being destroyed, because they’re destroyed in its presence. We don’t know from the prophecy when the little horn starts. All we know is that it starts small, and then grows. It’s possible that it’s around for a long time before it’s noticed. 
A “time, times, and half a time” is three and a half years, based on the “seven times” of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness. This makes the little horn’s career a parody of Jesus’ three and a half year ministry.(10) He’s a false messiah contrasted with the true Messiah.(11)
            There’s one prime candidate here — the Roman Catholic Church. Before you get upset, let me make one thing perfectly clear. I’m not speaking against individual Catholics. That church has millions of good Christians in it, including one of my golfing buddies. I’m talking about the organization. Bear with me as we go through a few key points of its history.

Roman Catholic History

The church in Rome started out as one of several important apostolic churches. Its earliest bishops were godly men who generally didn’t expect to live a year after they became bishop. When Constantine became Emperor in the 312, the government began to promote the church.(12) Naturally, this helped with evangelism. It also concentrated church authority in the imperial capital and gave its bishops a taste for power.

In 325 Constantine called the Council of Nicaea to resolve the Arian problem. The Council properly declared the belief that Jesus had been created was a heresy, but it refused to die out. In 380, Valentinian II declared that Nicene orthodoxy was the official state religion, and hinted that the state might use force against Arians. In 445, Emperors Valentinian III and Theodosius II imposed an Edict supporting “the prince of the episcopal crown.” No one was allowed to “attempt to carry out anything contrary to the ancient custom without the authority of that venerable man the Pope of the Eternal City. But let whatever the authority of the Apostolic See decrees or shall decree, be accepted as law by all.” Local governors were supposed to enforce the Edict.

In 476 the western half of the Empire fell to the Heruli under Odoacer.(13) With no Emperor of the West, Imperial support for the Roman Church now had to come from Constantinople. Then in 496 Clovis I of the Franks converted to Catholicism and became a protector of the papacy.(14)

In 507 Clovis defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Vouillé. For this Emperor Anastasius awarded him the title Patricius and Consul of the Roman Empire. In 511 he called the First Council of Orléans, which solidified the link between the throne and the Church of Rome.

Roman Catholic prestige grew until the Church became the center of political power.  Arians were defeated. European kings depended on the Church’s blessing for legitimacy.(15) It was able to use this power to raise armies for the Crusades, including several against “heretical” Christian powers.(16)

The Catholic Church also persecuted individual “heretics.” Its agents traveled through Europe and put its opponents on trial. Once they were convicted, the church handed them to the secular authorities who executed them. The Roman church didn’t do the dirty work. It arranged for others to do it, just as it had happily let others stamp out Arianism.

Before we move on, we have to check out one more power.

Islam

Mohammed began writing the Qur’an near Mecca in 610. By 625, his followers were persecuting Jews. In 642 they conquered Egypt, killing many Christians. By about 750 they had wiped out the Christian communities in North Africa and Spain, taking over a large part of what had been the Roman Empire.

It’s pretty clear that Islam has some of the characteristics of the little horn. It may even be part of the little horn imagery, but we can’t make it into the whole story. It was fully integrated into the Moslem polity, just like Catholicism. But Islam doesn’t have a truly separate central religious power that is able to stand back and let somebody else’s army do the dirty work like the Roman Church. It doesn’t look different than the other horns.

Back to the Prophecy

What about the claim to change God’s laws and appointed times? Sabbath observance was the norm in the apostolic era. By the Council of Nicaea, Sunday had become the ordinary day of worship, at least in the western part of the Empire. The change came from a complex combination of factors, but the Roman Church is happy to claim credit.(17) And it has been able to enforce its claims.

It’s particularly important to notice the source of Roman authority. Supposedly each dogma was handed down through an unbroken chain of tradition from the apostles. But even a casual student can check the sources and see this claim is false.(18) This means that the authority for the Roman church doesn’t come from God. These are great boasts against God.(19)

At the end of the Dark Ages, the Protestant Reformation began. While this led to the decline of Roman power, it didn’t immediately end persecution. New orthodoxies were defended with the death penalty.(20) The Puritans who came to America for religious freedom were themselves intolerant to the point of banishing “heretics.”

The civil powers of the Church were slowly eroded. The Treaty of Augsburg in 1555 allowed a ruler to choose Lutheranism instead of Catholicism. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 extended this right to include Calvinism, and gave other denominations a limited amount of freedom.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1791 was the first clear separation of church and state since Constantine. The last bit of formal Roman Catholic political control in Europe ended when the last papal state was finally lost in 1870. We can’t be absolute in picking the dates, but it’s pretty clear that we’re in the right era.

While Daniel was contemplating the horns, thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took His seat. His vesture was like white snow, And the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames. Its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before Him; Thousands upon thousands were attending Him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before Him. (7:9–10)

The divine council opened the books, bringing the court into session.(21) God charged man’s kingdoms with breaking the covenant.(22) After hearing the evidence, the court removed the first three beasts’ dominion, but they were allowed to live on for an appointed period of time (7:12). They were swallowed up by their successors. But the fourth beast kept boasting (7:11). It was killed and its body was burned in the fire. Its dominion was annihilated forever (7:26).

How can I explain how totally cool this is? The Old Testament penalty for adultery is death by stoning. But if the criminal was a priest’s daughter caught in adultery, she was supposed to be stoned and then burned (Lev 21:9).

Adultery is the most common Old Testament image for idolatry. The little horn part of the fourth beast boasts against God. That’s adultery with other gods! And the little horn is a religious power, in effect “a priest’s daughter.” So stoning followed by burning is the right penalty.

God is so perfectly consistent. He uses imagery to make His teachings clear. And He uses the same imagery again and again so we’ll understand exactly what He wants us to know.

Man’s heart is deceitful and sick (Jer 17:9). We can be healed only when we’re connected with God. Man’s kingdoms are irretrievably lost. We need to be in the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Heb 11:10). We need to be heaven-dwellers (Heb 12:18–24).

I have to digress for a moment. This divine council passes judgment on four kingdoms that span almost three thousand years. If it sits at the end of the first kingdom, the others haven’t done anything yet and can’t properly be judged. If it waits for the end of the fourth kingdom, it will be too late to extend the lives of the first three.

One solution is to suggest that this council is outside of time. Unfortunately, that concept wasn’t invented until about three hundred years after Daniel. So the best answer is that this council scene represents God’s sovereignty over the affairs of man, like Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2.

As Daniel kept looking, One like a Son of Man came up in the clouds of heaven. He was presented to the Ancient of Days and was given dominion, glory and a kingdom so that all peoples and nations, regardless of language, would serve him (7:13–14). After the Cross and resurrection, Jesus ascended to heaven (Acts 1:9). Then He began His heavenly ministry as our sovereign Lord (cf. Matt 28:18).

God’s kingdom will not pass away or be destroyed. Jesus will reign until He has placed every enemy under His feet (1 Cor 15:25). Then every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord (Phil 2:9–11).

When the last human kingdom is destroyed, God will give the sovereignty, dominion, and greatness of all the kingdoms to His saints. They will serve and obey Him (7:27). Sin will be abolished. Only those who’ve fully committed themselves to God will remain.

At this point, the revelation ended. Daniel was greatly alarmed, but he kept the matter to himself. (7:28)

We shouldn’t be surprised. Daniel was expecting the end of the Babylonian captivity. He hoped the restoration of the Jews to Palestine would lead them to follow God into permanent peace. All that stuff about the fourth beast and the horrible things it would do to the saints had to bother him. Unfortunately, the picture’s about to get worse.