Daniel Chapter 7

Daniel

chapter 7: Four Wild Beasts

From the beginning of chapter 2 through the end of chapter 7, Daniel has switched from Hebrew to write in the Gentile language of the day, Aramaic (also known as Chaldean). The Aramaic language uses the same letters as Hebrew, but in different order, just as Spanish or English use the same Roman letters differently. Why the change in language?

While most of Scripture deals with history through the lens of Israel (with the Jews and the nation of Israel as the "center point" of the story), these six chapters in Aramaic deal primarily with Gentile history. So it makes sense that Daniel would write them in the commmon Gentile language to make the distinction obvious.

This vision in chapter 7 is the same one given to Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2, but with different idioms used. It is appropriate that Daniel chose to start and end the use of Aramaic with the account of these visions, since they represent the same history.

What makes this chapter interesting is that while Nebuchadnezzar's vision was given using man's view of these kingdoms, Daniel was shown God's view. In Nebuchadnezzar's vision, a man of precious metal was seen, a story of impressive wealth and superiority. His vision was about man's push for power and riches, ultimately overcome by Christ. Daniel's view of the same history shows these kingdoms from God's point of view, as a series of voracious beasts causing pain and turmoil in their rebellion against God. They are diverse, not unified. They are ugly and disturbing. Rather than precious metals or accomplishment there is only destruction.

Daniel 7:1-2

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions while he lay upon his bed. He wrote down the dream, and told the sum of the matters.

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

This vision was given to Daniel in the first year of the co-regency of Belshazzar. We don't know exactly when Nabonidus began to share the kingdom with his son. It was probably about 3 or 4 years after Nabonidus became king. So when Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall the night Belshazzar is killed, he would have already had the perspective of this vision in his mind.

The Great Sea was a common term for the Mediterranean Sea, but is used in several places of the Bible to describe the "sea" of humanity in its Gentile sense. For other references, see Isaiah 17:12-13; 57:20; Jeremiah 6:23; 46:7-9; 47:2; Revelation 13:1; 17:1,15.

The "four winds of heaven" is also a common term in Scripture. We see it used to describe spiritual forces, both good and evil. The term is used 90 times in the Old Testament, 30 times in the New.

Daniel 7:3-4

Four great beasts, each different from one another, came up from the sea.

The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings. As I looked, its wings were torn off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand upon its feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it.

From God's perspective, the empires of man are not pleasant or precious but represent different forms of rebellion against God. No wonder He shows them to Daniel as wild beasts.

The first beast was "something like" a regal lion, the king of beasts, with wings of an eagle, the king of birds. It wasn't actually a lion but that was the closest idiom Daniel could find to describe what he saw. Although a lion with eagle's wings was the symbol of the Babylonian empire, we shouldn't make the mistake of assuming God was using the commonly known human symbolism for this empire. In any case it clearly represents the Babylonian empire under Nebuchadnezzar. Note the interesting reference to the "heart of a man" given to it, apparently representing Nebuchadnezzar's conversion as described in Daniel 4. At that point he was no longer a beast in the spiritual sense but a human being under the authority of God.

Romans still?

We tend to think of empires in relation to the tangible things we identify them with, like the architecture they used, their clothing or other details. From that point of view, the Roman empire seems long past. After all, nobody wears togas anymore except college students at wild parties.

God looks at empires differently and from his point of view the Roman empire is still very much alive. It was never actually conquered by any other empire but collapsed politically and militarily from within.

The Roman Catholic church was founded during that empire and has continued its religious practices virtually unchanged to this day. Pagan practices popularized during the Roman empire have diminished but have not disappeared. Every year tens of thousands of modern-day druids attend the summer solstice celebrations at Stonehenge.

The political system developed by Rome -- of elected senators representing the people -- is still in use in most of the western world. Its legal system has survived, as have many of the military strategies we still use in modern warfare.

The last Roman ruler wasn't actually killed until 1453 at the fall of Constantinople!

In the eyes of God, we are still living in this empire. Much of Daniel's vision (and others given to him later) describes the future state of a revived form of this Roman empire.

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Daniel 7:5

And before me was a second beast, like a bear, and it raised itself up on one side, and it had three ribs between its teeth. It was told, "Arise, devour much flesh."

The second beast is like a powerful bear. This was the Medo-Persian empire that would follow the Babylonian empire. Whenever a prophet says "like" it means this was not exactly what he saw, but that he is finding a common analogy he can use to describe what he saw as well as possible. In this case, he didn't see a bear, but it was the closest idiom he could find to the beast he saw.

Scholars are divided on the meaning of the three ribs. They may represent the unsuccessful alliance of the Urartians, Manneans and Scythians who tried to stop the Persians, but they are much more likely to represent Lydia, Babylon and Egypt which were the three major conquests of the Persian empire.

The Persians under Xerxes would later boast an enormous army numbering 2 million men. During a period known as the "Persian wars" they waged brutal military conquests, committing many atrocities, especially against the Greeks.

The Persian giant

Daniel saw Persia as "something like a bear" with three ribs in its mouth. Scholars are unsure what the ribs represent, but history has left much evidence about the massive size of the Persian army under king Xerxes.