Q-Have you any light on the seeming discrepancy between Rev. 19:20 and Dan. 7:11?
The former states that the beast and the false prophet were both cast alive into the lake of fire. But the verse in Daniel states that “the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.”
ENQUIRER.
A-If we distinguish in Dan. 7:11 between “the horn” and “the beast,” we observe that it is concerning the latter we read, “the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame”, as the consequence of “the voice of the great words which the horn spake.”
The “little horn” (ver. 8) is the last ruler or chief of the long defunct but to be revived Roman empire, the fourth beast that was so “diverse from all the beasts that were before it” (ver. 7). And of this particular head or chief, Daniel does not say more than “they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end” (ver. 26).
The “beast” (i.e. the empire) was slain &c. by the direct visitation of divine wrath— “the burning flame.”
In Rev. 19:20 where the apostle gives us the character of the empire under its great chief, rather than the historic details of Daniel, we have “the beast” and “the false prophet,” the two individual leaders, civil and religious, summarily dealt with by being “cast alive into the lake of fire” where also later Satan himself has his final doom.
It will thus be seen that as the apostle goes on to speak of the remnant as “slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth” (Rev. 19:21), so the prophet would appear to describe the same act by the expression— “the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.” The “burning flame” here refers, not to “the lake of fire” but, to the preceeding verse of Dan. 7 “a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him” and this appears to be the same as spoken of in Rev. 19:20 “the sword that proceeded out of his mouth.”
We have then, in both scriptures the fate of the Roman, or last world-empire, while in the later revelation, as might be expected, the further fact is disclosed that the leader or head of this future empire would himself, along with the false prophet or antichrist, ( “the king” of Isa. 30:33, Dan. 11:36) be “cast alive into the lake of fire", to which are consigned all the dead great and small raised to stand before the throne to be judged according to their works (Rev. 20:10-15; 21:8)—the fixed and never ending judgment of all those who reject the Savior. “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11).