Daniel 7:1-8

Part ThreeDaniel's ForeknowledgeChapter s 7-12
CHAPTER SEVEN

I. BEASTS AND THE BEAUTYDaniel 7:1-28

a. MALEVOLENT BEAST

TEXT: Daniel 7:1-8

1

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters.

2

Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of heaven brake forth upon the great sea.

3

And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.

4

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 to stand upon two feet as a man; and a man's heart was given to it.

5

And, behold, another beast, a second, like to a bear; and it was raised up on one side, and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.

6

After this I beheld, and, lo, another, like a leopard, which had upon its back four wings of a bird; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.

7

After this I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, a fourth beast, terrible and powerful, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.

8

I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.

QUERIES

a.

What symbolic meaning do the four winds and the great sea have?

b.

What do the four beasts symbolize?

c.

Who is the little horn of the fourth beast?

PARAPHRASE

One night back during the first year of Belshazzar's reign over Babylon, Daniel had a dream and he wrote it down. This, in essence, is his vision: I was having a very graphic vision in my dreaming, at night, and behold the four winds of heaven burst forth upon the great sea. Then four huge, terrifying beasts came up out of the sea, each different from the other. The first was like a lion, but it had wings like an eagle. And as I watched, its wings were pulled off so that it could no longer fly. But it was stood on its hind legs like a man would stand, and a man's mind was given to it. The second beast was like a bear with its feet on one side lifted as if it were going to stride ahead. It held three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. I heard a voice saying to it, Get up, Devour many people! The third of these strange beasts was like a leopard, but it had in its back wings like those of birds; and it had four heads. And extensive power was given to it over all mankind. Then, as my dream continued, I saw a fourth beast coming up out of the sea too fearful and dreadful to describe, and it was incredibly strong. It devoured some of its victims by tearing them apart with its huge iron teeth; others it crushed beneath its powerful feet. It was far more brutal and vicious than any of the other beasts, and it had ten horns. And as I was observing the horns, suddenly another small horn appeared among them, and three of the first ones were pulled out by the roots to give the little horn room; this little horn had a man's eyes and a boastful, bragging mouth.

COMMENT

Daniel 7:1-3. THE FOUR WINDS OF HEAVEN BRAKE FORTH UPON THE GREAT SEA. Young believes the four winds symbolize some power of God to stir up the nations (sea). Keil suggests, heavenly powers and force by which God sets the nations of the world in motion. Leupold disagrees, saying, that would yield the result that disturbances in the world are attributable to heavenly forces whereas they are more correctly termed the result of purely earthly causes. He believes that the unrest of nations which brings one king and kingdom to power after another is caused directly by the deliberate unregenerate actions of these nations. He prefers to regard the winds as a second earthly factor in the picture and a rather appropriate one at that. There is some indication in scripture that God does stir up the spirit of certain rulers and nations and is providentially active in the affairs of history (cf. Isaiah 10:5-16; Isaiah 45:1-7; Jeremiah 27:5-7; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:1-4, etc.). It should be apparent, however, from the context of the whole body of scripture that God does not overrule the will of man and force a man to think something he does not want to think. God does use natural means at various times to overrule the actions of men but not their wills. So a position somewhere between that of Young and Leupold would seem scriptural to us.

Now with the symbolic figure water the matter is much clearer in scripture. It seems to be widely accepted that the great sea symbolizes mankind, and especially Gentile world powers hostile to God and Israel (cf. Isaiah 8:7 ff.; Jeremiah 46:7-9; Jeremiah 47:2; Isaiah 17:2 ff. and Revelation 17:1-15). Thus when the four beasts appear as rising from the sea, that clearly indicates that tse disturbed state of the world (whether the disturbing force be God or man or both) gives origin to the successive world powers that appear on the scene of history.

This chapter is somewhat of a flashback to the days before Darius and the Medo-Persian takeover. It was during the first year of Belshazzar's rule of Babylon that Daniel himself was given a dream-vision. While the dream was still fresh in his mind, he wrote it down in its essentials. He was undoubtedly restrained by the Spirit of God from including all the unnecessary so as not to present a bewildering array of details not necessary to the reader's understanding.
The most adequate figurative representation of these powers is four beasts. Leupold dwells at length upon this: There may be something of human greatness about empires as chapter two allows. There is just as much justification for the point of view that in their relation to one another and in their mode of acquiring power the world powers are rapacious beasts of great strength and are no longer human. As long as a nation makes no bid for imperial control it may preserve a more humanized attitude and character. As soon as it enters the lists to become a leader among the nations, all resemblance to the finer human traits is laid aside, and the beast comes to the forefront. This flatters human vanity but little but is one of the truest facts ever revealed by the Scriptures. All subtle self-flattery of the nations to the contrary, this is still the most telling and accurate description of the outstanding trait of the nations that aim to exercise control over other nations.

We believe beast represents in an even more general way all world power. Eventually all worldly rulers and governments will be banished and the only kingdom remaining in a new heaven and new earth will be the kingdom of God. This forms a key or basis for interpreting all apocalyptic literature of the Bible, including the book of Revelation. Beast does not mean one specific world empire, unless a certain beast is named and some point of interpretative reference is specifically named by the inspired writers.

Daniel 7:4-6. FIRST. A LION. A MAN'S HEART. GIVEN TO IT. ANOTHER. LIKE UNTO A BEAR. AND LO, ANOTHER, LIKE A LEOPARD. It should be evident to the thorough student that these four beasts are parallel to the four parts of the great mental statue in chapter two. The lion represents Babylon for Babylon was the first power to achieve world dominion. Egypt is Babylon's only predecessor who came near to such world dominion but Egypt never came near to dominating the world like Babylon did. Babylon was the sead of the statue in chapter two and here she is represented by the heads of two animal kingdomsthe lion and the eagle. Furthermore, the peoples of that day were familiar with such figures as the winged lions that guarded the gates of royal palaces among the Babylonians. They were practically emblems of the Babylonian power. The prophets use the lion to symbolize Babylon as well as using the eagle for the same purpose (cf. Jeremiah 49:19; Jeremiah 50:17; Jeremiah 50:44; Jeremiah 48:40; Jeremiah 49:22; Ezekiel 17:3; Ezekiel 17:12). The plucking out of the wings from the lion and the standing like a human plus the giving of a human heart symbolizes a time when the Babylonian power was de-beasted and humanized. This undoubtedly refers to the humiliation of Nebuchadnezzar as related in chapter four when his proud nature and lust for conquest were taken from him by God. The nation, of course, shared the king's experience since he was its moving spirit.

The second beast in Daniel's dream-vision was like a bear. After the lion in regality comes the bear and symbolizes the Medo-Persian empire. The bear is more slow and heavy-going than the lion and well represents the distinction between Babylon and Persia. Young thinks the bear was standing with two feet on one side raised for the purpose of going forward and this symbolizes the two-sided (Medo-Persian) nature of the empire with one side (Persian) going on ahead of the other. The three ribs it is devouring in its mouth merely represents the beast as not content with one body but devouring many. Any delineation of the three ribs as specific empires devoured by the Medo-Persian conquest would have to be totally arbitrary since the Medo-Persian coalition conquered more than three (some arbitrarily say the three ribs represent Babylon, Lydia and Egypt). The bear is commanded by God after it has substantial conquests in its jaws to arise and attempt to devour more. The Persian Empire was voracious; it devoured quite a bit more than did Babylon and attempted to devour as far as Macedonia and Greece. All in all, the vision emphasizes a greedy voraciousness over against the royal dignity that marked the first beast.
The third beast, like a leopard with four wings and four heads, symbolizes Alexander the Great and the Grecian empire. About 150 years after Persian hordes had invaded Greece and burned Athens (although the Persians had been driven back to Asia Minor) Greek militants still preached vengeance. War demanded unity and Greece remained fragmented in rival city-states, exhausted by the Peloponnesian War. Into the vacuum rode Philip II (of Macedon), intent upon uniting Greece and invading Persia. A master in the art of war, he developed the celebrated Macedonian Phalanxrank upon rank of infantrymen with shields closely joined and spears more than twice as long as those of their foes. Shock troopsskilled horsemen of Thessaly and Macedonia-flanked the solid phalanxes. As Philip rode south, the Greeks resisted. In Athens, orators denounced the northerner; Demosthenes-' eloquent thunder still echoes in our word philippic. The decisive clash came in 338 B.C. at Chaeronea, northwest of Athens. Philip commanded on the right wing while his 18-year-old son Alexander led a cavalry charge from the left. They wheeled and chewed up the Greek center. All Greece save Sparta now submitted, and Philip was free to lead a united force against Persia. When an assassin's knife cut him down, young Alexander made his father's dream his own. Alexander left Pella on a bright spring day in 334 B.C. leading 30,000 foot soldiers and 5000 cavalryand the next 11 years were spent in a whirlwind of warfare, hardships, and revelry. Entering Babylon in the spring of 323 B.C., worn out by wounds, hardship, and overdrinking, he fell ill of a fever. Soon he could neither move nor speak. He was propped up and each officer and soldier filed past. He acknowledged each man with his eyes or a slight movement of his head. Within two days Alexander died. He was not yet 33 years old. His empire stretched half-way around the worldfrom Europe to Asiafrom Macedonia to the Himalayas in India and China.
This ferocious, agile, swift beast is a very appropriate symbol of Alexander's empire. The four head's on the beast symbolize the four-way division of this great empire at Alexander's death, (although Young disagrees and insists they merely represent the four corners of the earth, symbolizing the ecumenicity of his kingdom). At his untimely death his empire disintegrated into four major kingdoms which were ruled over by his chief generals (PtolemyEgypt; AntigonusAsia; CassanderMacedonia; and LysimachusThrace) Antigonus was later killed in a battle, his Asiatic empire came to an end, and Seleucus (Ptolemy's leading general) was given Palestine and Syria over which to rule (see extended historical account in chapter 11). These four kingdoms continued as prominent factors in world politics until the next empire appeared on the scene and amalgamated the parts into a whole.

The interesting note at the end of Daniel 7:6, ... and dominion was given to it, reveals very clearly that all of Alexander's accomplishments were providentially given to him by the Most High God. Alexander did not actually achieve by ordinary conquests the victories that were his lot, but that he had been singled out by divine providence to have the world dominion come into his hands. He was, in a very particular way, a man of destiny!

Daniel 7:7-8. BEHOLD A FOURTH BEAST, TERRIBLE AND POWERFUL. IT HAD TEN HORNS. CAME UP AMONG THEM ANOTHER HORN, A LITTLE ONE. There is no beast in all the fauna sufficiently fierce and terrible to symbolize so abnormal a type of empire. Everything points to the Roman world power as being the empire typified by this beast. Using its great iron teeth it broke things in pieces and devoured them, and what it could not devour it stamped with its feet, grinding it into dust. Rome was singularly voracious, cruel and destructiveeven vindictive as a world power. She could never get enough of conquest. Often she conquered just out of sheer spiteful vengeance. Rome had no interest in raising the conquered nations to any high level of development. All her designs were exploitation and imperialism. If they could not devour a victim by plunder and taxation, they would stamp it under their feet, sacked and burned, left in desolate ruins.

The ten horns symbolize a complete, multiplicity of powerful rulers. As with the three ribs in the bear's mouth, should one attempt to designate specifically ten different emperors of Rome he would have to make a very arbitrary selection. The number ten symbolizes completeness.
The seer's attention is directed to a little horn which supplants three that were rooted up. Leupold suggests that the whole idea between ten, three that are rooted up, and one which supplants the three, is comparative. If one replaces three, it becomes comparatively quite a bit larger than any one of the others. Yet the little one does not grow as strong as the whole empirethe ten.

This little horn has eyes like a man and a mouth speaking great things, which, as we shall show later in Daniel 7:15-28, are characteristic of the ruler of the Roman Catholic papacy. The fact that Daniel observed the little born having human eyes indicates his attention was intentionally drawn away from the beastly character of the fourth kingdom to what seems to be a human personality growing out of the fourth beast. This human personality has power (symbolized by horn) and utters great, boastful, things (characterized in Daniel 7:25 as words against the Most High). A more extensive interpretation of the little horn will be made in subsequent verses.

QUIZ

1.

Does God ever stir up men or events upon the earth to fulfill His purposes?

2.

What is symbolized by the four beasts coming up from the sea?

3.

Which world-empire does the lion represent, and why?

4.

Which, the bear?

5.

Which, the leopard? What about its four heads?

6.

Why was the fourth empire not represented by an animal?

7.

What do the ten horns symbolize? What about the little horn?