Hints on Daniel.
The Fourth Beast Daniel 7:7-13.
WE come now to the second division of our chapter. In the first the prophet had seen in a general manner four great beasts coming up from the sea, but three only of these were described, and that briefly, though with striking accuracy of detail.
Here, however, the fourth beast is exclusively noticed, and there can be but little doubt that the Roman empire is intended thereby. The Babylonian captivity had lasted seventy years, and this we may roughly take as the duration of the empire; for though Babylon was one of the most ancient cities of the earth―we find it mentioned in Scripture as early as the tenth chapter of Genesis―it had yielded to the power of the Assyrians. Babylonia had become an insignificant province, and the city of Babylon had been razed to the ground. Under Nebuchadnezzar, however, it was rebuilt after a gorgeous fashion about 607 B.C., and it is to this period of its existence that the vision of Daniel refers.
Roughly speaking, we may say that the Medo Persian empire lasted a little more than two hundred years from the fall of Babylon under Darius the Mede, about 538 B.C., to the time of the defeat of Darius the Persian by Alexander the Great at the battle of Issus in 333 B.C.
The Grecian empire, as we have seen, then asserted itself, and existed in greater or less degree for three hundred years. Towards the middle of this period another people began to make their presence felt in the affairs of the nations; these were the Romans. For many centuries this people had existed, for Rome was founded in 753 B.C., but in that form in which they came into prominence in connection with God’s plans as to this earth we must look not at their earlier history as a republic, but at their later under the emperors. In other words, it is the Roman empire as such that is seen in vision by Daniel as this great and terrible beast.
Magnificence had characterized Babylon. Rapacity and greed were the prominent features of the Persian dynasty. Rapidity of conquest marked the Grecian, especially in its commencement under Alexander the Great. But the Roman empire was diverse from all the others. It was “strong exceedingly.” Nothing could stand before it; it had “great iron teeth” with which it devoured all the peoples against whom its arms were directed.
This remarkable power of the Roman empire to absorb the nations that came under its influence marks it off completely from all the beasts that had preceded it. Where it did not absorb them, they were broken to pieces and stamped into submission.
But another remarkable feature stands prominently before the prophet’s vision; “it had ten horns,” and these ten horns, we are told, are “ten kings that shall arise” (vs. 24). There can be no serious question that this fourth beast of our chapter is the same that we find so frequently mentioned in the Apocalypse. In Revelation 13:1, John sees a beast rising out of the sea, that troubled state of human society, with “seven heads and ten horns”; these ten horns are here also explained as being “ten kings which have received no kingdom as yet” (17:12).
The more closely we examine these chapters in Daniel and Revelation the more we are persuaded that this ten horned state of the Beast looks on to that stage of its existence which is yet future. For the Roman empire is not done with, it is yet to arise, and will enter largely into the affairs of Palestine and Europe during that brief period of terrible trouble which follows the coming of the Lord for His saints, and immediately precedes His return with them in judgment.
We would direct the reader’s attention to a well-known but most remarkable passage in this connection. “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition” (Rev. 17:8). Here, then, there are three stages clearly noticed and marked off from one another. It “was”; this takes us back to the early days of the empire when in all its dreadful and terrible strength it rose up into power amidst the nations of the earth. So wide-stretched was its dominion that a decree went forth from its first emperor, Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed (Luke 2:1).
But it “is not”; that is to say, it has ceased to exist as a world power; instead of breaking others to pieces, it has itself been broken to pieces. Of course it must be distinctly borne in mind that we are not speaking of the Romish Church. The Roman empire is a political and not a religious power. The two are clearly distinguished in Rev. 17; in that chapter the Beast is the political, and the woman sitting on the Beast is the religious system.
But, further, we are told that it “shall ascend out of the bottomless pit”; this is the awful form that it will assume in the future. There will be at the close of this world’s history, just before the setting up of the kingdom of the Son of man, a vast political system in Europe. Its seat of government will be Rome, the city of the seven hills (Rev. 17:9). Its form of government will be that commonly called imperial, that is to say, it will not be merely a king reigning over his own people, but an emperor who will have under him ten vassal kings. “The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast” (vs. 12).
It seems clear from this that the ten-horned stage is yet future, for never in the history of the Roman empire has there been such a condition of things as is here described. There was a time when the Beast existed apart from the ten kings. If the present broken state of the empire be looked upon as the ten-horned condition, then where is the Beast separate from and holding sway over the ten? No, the condition of things described in Revelation 17. has never yet been seen―namely, a great imperial head named The Beast, and at the same time ten kings who will give their power and strength unto the Beast.
The Word of God is specially concerned with what will take place at the close, and with those circumstances which lead up to the coming of the Son of man. Consequently the Spirit of God concentrates Daniel’s thoughts upon a change of a remarkable nature that will take place amongst these ten kings at that time. “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” (Dan. 7:8). Comparing this with Revelation 17:14, we gather, not that these three horns are positively destroyed, but that their power is broken, for the whole ten are seen at the end in open war with the Lamb, and He it is that destroys them.
The little horn will become notorious, and alas for him! notoriously wicked (vs. 25). He will be a man possessed of unwonted intelligence― “in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man” (vs. 8) ―coupled with arrogant pretension― “a mouth speaking great things;” and from the moment that he makes his appearance he thenceforth becomes so prominent in the affairs of the Beast that he and the Beast become identical. No one who reads Revelation 13:1-9 in connection with the description given of the little horn in Daniel 7. can fail to see the identity between the Beast who opens his mouth “in blasphemy against God,” &c. (Rev. 13:6), and the little horn who speaks “great words against the Most High” (Dan. 7:25).
All seems to prosper until God’s time for the execution of judgment has fully come― “I beheld till the thrones were set up” (vs. 9). The authorized version is here misleading. The thrones here spoken of are not the earthly thrones of human government, but the heavenly thrones of divine judgment. Little as man may believe it to-day, an end will come to all the blasphemous hostility to God, His Word, His truth, and His people, which is gaining strength every day, and which will burst forth with appalling fierceness the moment the restraining power of the Holy Ghost is taken away by the removal of the true Church at the coming of the Lord (2 Thess. 2).
Judgment it is, and not the conversion of the world through the gospel, which will end the history of the times of the Gentiles. “I beheld till the thrones were set up, and the Ancient of days did sit,” &c. Who is this Ancient of days? The description here given resembles so closely what is said of the Son of man in Revelation 1. that it would be impossible not to identify the two. Indeed, our chapter does so further down, for in verse 13 we are told that “one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days,” whereas verses 21 informs us that it is the Ancient of clays that came. It is the Lord Jesus Christ to whom, as Son of man, all judgment has been committed (John 5:27), and who, while truly man, is as truly God. In His blessed Person we see One who, according to the prophecy of Micah (ch. 5:2), came forth out of Judah, and therefore was man, and yet, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting, and hence was God.