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Daniel repeatedly says that the empires seen in his vision look "like" certain wild beasts. The use of metaphors is common in prophecy. The prophets didn't actually see these exact animals but tried to find examples in life that their readers would be familiar with. The apostle John does the same thing in the book of Revelation, when he describes "something like a burning mountain was thrown into the sea." He didn't see a mountain but it was the closest thing he could find to describe what he saw. Likewise, Daniel uses wild beasts but can find no suitable idiom for the fourth beast. Daniel 7:6 After this I saw another beast, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings. The beast also had four heads, and authority to rule was given to it. The third beast was like a leopard, a fast-moving, agile cat. Under the leadership of young Alexander the Great, the Greeks swept from the west into the east and south, decimating the massive military might of the Persians and Egyptians all the way to India. Alexander had four key generals. After he died at the age of 33, they fought over the empire, killing both his sons during the next 13 years. After 22 years of power struggles this once-great world empire was broken up into four parts:
These were the four wings and four heads of that empire. The struggles for domination between Seleucus and Ptolemy and their descendents fills Daniel chapter 11 in the most incredible detail. Daniel 7:7 After this I saw in the night visions a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and very strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke its victims in pieces, and trampled the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. The fourth beast is so terrible it leaves Daniel without adequate idioms to describe it. Note that it has iron teeth, like the iron of the vision given to Nebuchadnezzar. Rome's style was very different from that of the prior empires. While all of them were brutal in military terms, the prior empires respected the cultures and assets of the nations they conquered. They were generally very respectful of the people's religious practices and capabilities. Rome, on the other hand, crushed everything it took, trampling the history, culture, people and religions into oblivion in an attempt to enforce the Roman might on these conquered peoples. Rome began with the occupation of Sicily in 241BC. Spain was conquered, then Carthage at the battle of Zama in North Africa, 202BC. The Mediterranean became a Roman lake by the beginning of the Second Century. They subjugated areas north of Italy then moved east to conquer Macedonia, Greece and Asia Minor (the name given by that time to the area we now call Turkey). Pompey swept into Jerusalem in 63BC after destroying what was left of the Seleucid Empire in Syria. The empire eventually controlled Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany west of the Rhine. After peaking in AD117, it began to decline slowly. Rome left Britain in 407 and the city was sacked by the Visigoths in 410. Daniel 7:8 As I thought about the horns, there came up among them another little horn, before whom three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. In this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking boastfully. The "boastful mouth" is one of the primary descriptions applied to the coming world leader. He is described in several places as uprooting three of 10 future rulers of the empire that was Rome. Note that this is another horn, not one of the ten. The reference to plucking up by the roots indicates a slow and deep political process rather than military conquests. For other references to the coming 10 kingdoms, see Daniel 2:31-35; 40-45; 7:19-24; Revelation 13:1-2; 17:3,7,12-18. |
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