Aids for Bible Readers

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 23, 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

(Concluded)

DANIEL'S account of his vision of the four beasts thus proceeds: “The first was like a lion, and had eagles' wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon two feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it.” Verse 4. The lion and the eagle, chief among beasts and birds, correspond to the gold of the image, chief among metals; and thus the first beast, like the first portion of the metallic image, aptly symbolizes the autocratic Babylonian Empire. By the wings of the eagle seem to be meant the soaring ambition and swift conquests of the Babylonian monarchy. In the further description,—that the wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon two feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it,—there seems a reference, as is very generally admitted, to the punishment inflicted on Nebuchadnezzar in the zenith of Babylonian power, as narrated in the fourth chapter of Daniel, when the wings of the outrageous pride of the monarch were clipped by the judgment of insanity visited upon him, as we read in the sixteenth verse of that chapter: “Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him,”—after which he was restored from his degraded bestial condition, “lifted up from the earth,” etc., and brought to a sane appreciation of his humble position as a man in relation to Almighty God, as alluded to in the words, “A man's heart was given to it.”

We next read: “And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it was raised up on one side, and three ribs were in his mouth between his teeth: and they said unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.” Verse 5. This is well explained in Bishop Ellicott's Commentary: “The second beast corresponds to the silver portion of the image of chapter 2. . . . The raising up on one side implies that one part of the kingdom would come into greater prominence than the other. Such was the case in the Medo-Persian Empire, in which the Persian element surpassed the Median. . . . The three ribs have been understood from the time of Hippolytus to mean three nations subdued by it—the Babylonians, the Lydians, and the Egyptians. . . . By the command, ‘Arise and devour,’ the second empire is permitted to make further conquests before its disappearance.”

Next, of the third beast, we read: “After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.” Verse 6. This third beast corresponds to the third or brazen portion of the image, and denotes the Grecian Empire. Swiftness, indicated by the well-known activity of the leopard, and also by the four wings of a bird, was a striking characteristic of the conquests made by that power, especially under Alexander. . . .

We now come to the fourth beast, that which most interested Daniel, and a right understanding of which is of the deepest interest to ourselves, seeing that we are involved in the fulfilment of the vision. We read (verse 7): “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, terrible and powerful, and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.”

There can be no reasonable doubt that here is portrayed the same iron rule of Rome, which was symbolized by the iron portion of the image, and that the “ten horns” correspond to the “ten toes.” These, as we have already shown, indicate the separate powers, or kingdoms, into which the old Western Roman Empire was to become subdivided, after the Gothic invasions. These separate kingdoms were still component parts of the Roman Empire; but the old headship of the Cæsars, after being removed to Constantinople, was gradually supplanted in influence by the rising power of the popes,—a power that began to come into prominence at Rome at this very juncture of history, as we have already shown, and shall prove yet further as we proceed.

The chief interest of the vision of this fourth beast centers around the “little horn.” The previous vision of the image, given to a heathen despot, had simply to do with the question of political power, which was the idol of Nebuchadnezzar's heart. It foretold to him the succession of world-empires up to the advent of the world-empire of Christ, before whom all earthly empires and kingdoms would fall. But to Daniel, the child of God, in the vision of the fourth beast, a revelation was given concerning that which would be of the deepest interest to God's children. To him it was given to foretell, under the mysterious symbolism of the “little horn,” that in the course of the fourth, or Roman, world-empire, there would rise to the head of it, when it would have entered upon its subdivided stage, symbolized by the ten “horns,” or kingdoms, a terrible ruling power, not only political but also spiritual,—that of the antichrist. The career of this “little horn” forms the chief subject of Daniel's vision of the four beasts. It was to spring up among the “ten horns,” or kingdoms, and attain to supremacy over them all,—“whose look was more stout than his fellows.” Verse 20. A long line of the most able expositors, from the time of the Reformation to the present day, including such names as Sir. I. Newton, Bishop Newton, Bishop Wordsworth, Birks, Elliott, Guinness, etc., have shown that the little horn was a symbolic prediction of the rise of the papacy.

The little horn was “diverse” from the others, a characteristic which obviously applies to the papacy. As regards its actual temporal domains it has always been “little;” but, for all that, its political influence has been tremendous, and its pretensions unbounded, “whose look was more stout than his fellows.” In order that it might rise into eminence, it is said that before it “three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots”. . . .

Moreover it is said of the little horn that it had a “mouth” which uttered great blasphemies; it cruelly persecuted the saints of the Most High; and it had “eyes like the eyes of a man.” Of this latter characteristic Sir. I. Newton well says: “By its eyes it was a seer,” to use the expression of the Old Testament, or, as he adds, in that of the New Testament, an episkopos; i. e., an overseer, or bishop. Also it claimed absolute power, and to be above all law. We have already shown how these characteristics of the antichrist have been fulfilled in the papacy, and the proof will come out yet more fully as we further examine the New Testament prophecies on the same subject.—“Daniel and the Revelation,” by Joseph Tanner, London, Hodder, and Stoughton, 1898, pages 160-171.