Aids for Bible Readers

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 16, 1908

Aids for Bible Readers

Historical quotations and extracts from various writers which may assist the thoughtful student of the Scriptures.

The Image of Daniel 2 and the Four Beasts of Daniel 7

In the vision of the image the four successive world-empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome were symbolized by the four successive metal portions of the figure, gold, silver, brass, and iron. The deterioration of the metals indicated decrease and limitation of absolute despotic power in these successive empires. The iron portion, symbolizing the empire rule of Rome, consisted of the legs and feet; and the fact that this part of the human figure ends in ten separate toes was employed in the prophetic symbolism to foretell that in its last stages the Roman Empire would enter upon a subdivided condition, and be broken up into separate kingdoms, such as exist at the present day.

But there is a further mark of division, and the deterioration of concentrated despotic power, that would characterize the fourth empire in its latter stage. The symbolic prophecy speaks of clay entering into the composition of the feet and toes, weakening the power, and lessening cohesion. As regards this division of clay and iron in the feet, Professor Birks says: “The course of history of the Roman Empire in its natural order points us at once to the period from Constantine to Augustus. . . . The division in the present verse (Dan. 2: 41) arises, not from the separation of the toes, but the mingling of the clay with the iron. Hence it denotes properly the loosened cohesion of government throughout the empire, now in a state of rapid decline from its original greatness. It was to be patched with foreign and barbarous elements, before the complete separation into many kingdoms. Such are the facts of history.”

The lessening of cohesion and diminution of united despotic power became a still more marked characteristic of the Roman Empire of the West, when, under the repeated invasions of Gothic barbarians, it eventually became broken up into that assemblage of separate kingdoms, which, as we have said, was symbolized in the vision by the ten toes, which has continued ever since, and which will continue till the final crisis arrives.

In the vision of the image it should be noted that the image itself is represented as remaining standing all through the succession of empires, till the Stone, symbolizing the coming of Christ, falls at the end, and breaks them all up together. Hence we may see the mistake of those who speak of a future re-construction of the image under a future individual antichrist. There is no destruction of the image till the Stone falls; therefore there is no reconstruction of it in the symbolism.

The successive metal portions of the image denote successive additions of territory, as each empire is formed, and also a transfer of supreme power to the new empire. Each metal, as it attains supreme power, rules also over the portions of the image above it. Thus the silver (or Persian) portion denotes the fresh territory added by the Medo-Persian Empire to that of Babylon, and the transfer of power over both to the new empire thus extended. So also with the brass. Similarly the iron portion of the image denotes the fresh territory of the Western Empire of Rome, which was added to the Eastern territories symbolized by the previous metals; and also that the supreme power over the whole was to be transferred to the new world-empire of Rome. Hence it is clear that, since the ten toes belong to the iron portion of the image, the kingdoms which they symbolize are to be sought, not in the Eastern territories of the previous empires, but only in that part of the Roman Empire which was not included in the Grecian brass, or Persian silver, or Babylonian gold; that is to say, only in the Western Roman Empire, chiefly represented by modern Europe.

This was pointed out long ago by the acute intellect of Sir Isaac Newton, and is absolutely necessary for understanding the meaning of the symbolism of the image; but it is persistently ignored by those who oppose the historical system of interpretation. . . .

We are now in a position to understand the vision of the four beasts in Daniel 7, to which we have before briefly alluded. The prophet says: “I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of heaven brake forth upon the great sea. And four beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.” In verse 17 the angelic interpretation given of this is as follows: “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.” By comparing these two passages, we perceive that in prophetic imagery the stormy sea is a symbol of the earth with the peoples upon it in a state of unrest, or, as Keil puts it, of “the commotions among the nations of the world” out of which empires or kingdoms arise. We shall find exactly the same use of the symbol of the sea employed by St. John with reference to the beast or world-empire of which he speaks in Rev. 13: 1.

It is important to notice the prophetic or symbolic use of the word “kings” in this explanation given by the angel. We have previously mentioned that it is generally admitted—by the Futurist interpreters, Keil and Tregelles, as well as by all the best commentators—that in the prophetic visions of Daniel, “kings” often stands for “kingdom,” so that, as Tregelles says, “the words are used in passages of this kind almost in an interchangeable sense.” It is to be observed, further, that in this symbolical use of the term “king,” an empire or kingdom is regarded as being represented by the ruler, or rulers, for the time being, and this throughout the whole course of its duration. Hence we see that the full idea conveyed by the word “king,” when thus symbolically employed, is that of a dynasty, or succession of rulers reigning over an empire or kingdom—such dynasty, or headship, being regarded as collectively representing that empire or kingdom, the personal heads of the dynasty in succession being also regarded as individually representing the empire or kingdom for the time being.

This is shown, for instance, by the words addressed to Nebuchadnezzar in the vision of the image, “Thou, O king, . . . art the head of gold. And after thee [i. e., after the time of Babylonian dynasty of which he was then the representative] shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee,” referring to the Medo-Persian Empire, and its dynasty of rulers, which succeeded the Babylonian. And so, in the vision of the beasts, in the words we have already quoted, the angelic interpretation of the four beasts is that they are “four kings,” and immediately afterward the fourth beast is explained as being the “fourth kingdom” or empire—the kingdom, as Tregelles rightly says, being “regarded as headed up in its sovereign.”

Besides these passages from Daniel the “Speaker’s Commentary” gives an apt illustration of this meaning of the word “king” from Jer. 25:11,—“These nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years,”—on which it remarks that the word king here means “Nebuchadnezzar and his four successors.” In other words, the term means, as we have shown, a dynasty, or headship, of successive rulers in the same line over an empire or kingdom.

We shall see presently that a right understanding of this prophetic and symbolic use of the term “king” has a most important bearing upon the application of the same term by Daniel to the ten “horns” or “kingdoms” into which the fourth empire was to be divided; also to the remarkable “little horn,” or king, that was to rise into power among them (Dan. 7:8), which we shall prove to be the papal power. We shall also see, later on, the importance of this meaning of the word when we come to “the beast” of Revelation 13 and 17.—Daniel and the Revelation, by Joseph Tanner, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1898, pages 161-171.

(To be concluded)