December 29th - 2024
' 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.'
(Dan 7:8)
Hello there,
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* I have quoted the above responses that I have received, concerning the events taking place in the middle east currently, in order to prompt discussion on it here. 'Marlyn', who kindly made those comments in response to questions I asked of her, has an interesting blog on the subject in the 'Worthy' Christian website.
Thank you
In Christ Jesus
Chris
The Animal Vision of the Tyrants of the Past Empires (7:1-8)
Daniel has chosen to share as the first vision that he himself received in a night dream that came to him while he was lying on his bed in the first year of Belshazzar (1). Indeed, many evangelical scholars have viewed this vision as one of the key prophecies of the Bible in which God has outlined the future of the world extending from the rule of the Babylonians to the Second Advent of Messiah. This would explain why this chapter is so highly regarded by many interpreters.
Daniel saw “the four winds of heaven” “churning up the great sea” (2). It appears that these four winds were coming from heaven and that they were stirring up either the Mediterranean Sea or, better still, the sea of humanity (Lk 21:25; Mt 13:47; Rev 13:1). The collocation of these four winds, a churned-up sea, and the imagery of the animals, together suggested something more than the usual or ordinary type of storm. Nevertheless, from out of the agitated sea came one animal representing one empire after another.
A. Babylon
The first animal of the four appeared “like a lion” with “the wings of an eagle” (4). Such a motif was not unfamiliar to those who were accustomed to Babylonian art, nor were the allusions to the speed and strength of this lion, much less the soaring flight of an eagle, lost on that original audience. The winged lion was well known in that day as a symbol of the Babylonian Empire. For just as the lion was the king of the beasts and the eagle was the most noble among the birds, so Daniel 2 had earlier represented Babylon as the head of gold, the most valuable and cohesive of all the metals.
The prophet watched until its wings were “torn off” and “it was lifted from the ground and “stood on two feet like a man,” as a “heart of a man was given to it” (4). This may refer to both the early end of this empire and the rebuke of God that Nebuchadnezzar underwent until he finally was restored in his sanity after seven years of living as an animal.
B. Medo-Persia
Daniel’s second beast arising from the churning sea “looked like a bear,” which was raised on one side and it had three ribs in its mouth (5). It was given permission of rise up and “eat [its] fill.” The huge size of this animal may well reflect the fact that the kingdom of Medo-Persia had an army of some two and a half million men (as we are informed from other sources about the battle of Xerxes against Greece). The fact that it was raised on one sided fits very nicely, not only with its predatory stance, but with the fact that Persia was more dominate than Media in this joint partnership arrangement, just as the colossus in Daniel 2 signified this same duality with the silver chest and the two arms. Daniel would later learn that all four animals represented four kingdoms (17). Moreover, in Daniel 8, the ram, which repeats the vision of the bear, had two horns as well, again pointing to the two nations of Media and Persia.
The three ribs in the mouth of the bear are clearly three territories the bear has captured or conquered, but there is not always current agreement on which kingdoms they pointed to. But Gleason Archer (
Daniel, p 86) pointed to the fact that Cyrus and his son Cambyses were involved in three major campaigns: in 546 B.C. they triumphed over the Lydian kingdom in Asia Minor (present day Turkey), in 539 B.C. they defeated Babylon, and in 525 B.C. Cambyses annexed the kingdom of Egypt. These probably are the three ribs the text representationally referred to here.
C. Greco-Macedonian
A third animal arose from the storm-tossed sea, i.e., a leopard (6). This animal also was a composite, for it had four wings like a bird on its back and it also had four heads. It too was given authority to reign (6e). “After that,” (6a), a note that clearly implies that these kingdoms were sequential and were not to be seen as ruling simultaneously, is specifically pointed out.
This leopard represented Alexander the Great who ruled and conquered huge territories from 334 B.C to 322), but who was followed by his four generals after he suddenly died down near what is today known as Afghanistan. The four heads were his four generals named: Lysimachus, Cassander, Seleucus, and Ptolemy. Cassandra ruled over Macedonia and Greece; Lysimachus was given Thrace and Asia Minor as his kingdom; Seleucus was set over northern Syria and other eastern regions; and finally Ptolemy was installed as ruler over southern Syria, Palestine and Egypt.
D. Roman/Western
The fourth beast was the most terrifying and powerful one of the four animals. Its description focused more on the fact that it had “large iron teeth” and “ten horns,” for it certainly was “different from all the former beasts” (7). As Daniel was focusing on these ten horns of this beast an eleventh horn sprang up and it proceeded to uproot three of the former ten horns (8).
Futurists interpret this “little horn” to be the Antichrist. Our argument is that this fourth kingdom is that final kingdom that will appear at the end of history when a ten-nation federation will arise out of the ruins of the old former Roman Empire. Then it will happen that Antichrist, as the eleventh, but little, horn will uproot three of the ten nations of that day. He has the eyes of a man and a boastful mouth that promotes himself and his work.
Revelation 17:3 has the last world empire as a scarlet beast embracing a tenfold division. Likewise, Paul wrote to the Thessalonicans that this same Antichrist would be known as “the Man of Sin” or “the Son of Perdition” (2 Thess 2:3) or “that wicked One” whose mouth spoke boastfully (2 Thess 2:8).
TORAH CLASS
Shalom
