Part 8: Daniel's Dream.
Continued from previous post:
Continued from previous post:
This timeline of
world history was so important that God repeated it three times and in each of
them God added a little more detail. In
Daniel Chapter 7, while Daniel was still living under the Babylonian Empire, God
gave him a dream.
“…the
four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts were coming up from the
sea, different from one another. The
first was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle. I kept looking until its wings were plucked,
and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man;
a human mind also was given to it. And
behold, another beast, a second one, resembling a bear. And it was raised up on one side, and three
ribs were in its mouth between its teeth; and thus they said to it, ‘Arise,
devour much meat!’…and behold, another one, like a leopard, which had on its
back four wings of a bird; the beast also had four heads, and dominion was
given to it…and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely
strong; and it had large iron teeth. It
devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet; and it was
different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns…behold,
another horn, a little one, came up among them, and three of the first horns
were pulled out by the roots before it; and behold, this horn possessed eyes
like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great boasts.” Daniel
7:2-8
Daniel saw the four
winds of heaven stirring up the great sea (for an explanation of prophetic
symbols see Appendix 2). Out of this
great sea there came four beasts corresponding to the four metals making up the
statue Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream.
ANIMAL
|
|
KINGDOM
|
ATTRIBUTES
|
||
Lion
|
|
|
|
Wings
of Eagle = speed
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wings
Plucked = decadent and complacent
|
|
Bear
|
|
|
|
Raised
on one side =
|
|
|
|
|
|
Three
Ribs = three areas of conquest:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leopard
|
|
|
|
Four
Wings = extreme speed
|
|
|
|
|
|
Four
Heads = empire divided among the generals
|
|
Beast
|
|
|
|
Iron
Teeth = consumes nations
|
|
|
|
|
|
Extremely
Strong = crushes all opposition
|
|
Horns
|
|
Mixed
Nations
|
Arising
from
|
The first was a
lion that had wings like an eagle (signifying the speed with which the beast
could move). It had its wings plucked
and it was given a human mind. Babylon
stopped conquering other nations and felt secure in its power, becoming decadent
and complacent, losing the attributes of a preying lion and instead became the prey.
The lion was replaced by a lop-sided bear
(signifying that one side was stronger than the other) with three ribs in its
mouth (signifying the three geographical areas it ‘devoured’; its own lands of Media and Persia, lands the
Babylonian Empire once ruled, and new lands such as Anatolia).
The bear was replaced by a leopard with four
wings (signifying even greater speed of movement) and four heads (Alexander’s
empire divided among his generals).
And
finally a fourth beast, Rome, which was terrifying and extremely strong, ; it had iron teeth and crushed the other
beasts.
There are ten horns
on the last beast, signifying many smaller kingdoms arising from the
beast. In prophecy, a horn stands for a
person, so the ten horns would represent ten kings. If it is a literal number, did ten kings and
kingdoms arise after the Roman
Empire fell? Yes. Rome had become too large for one central
government to rule effectively so it was split into two halves by the emperor
Diocletian in the third century CE. The
Eastern half of the Roman Empire eventually became what we know as Byzantium
with its capitol at Constantinople. The
Western half of the divided Roman Empire kept Rome as its capitol and this is
the part that fell and was eventually divided into ten parts. Differences exist regarding which nations
comprised these ten parts; it seems to depend on the date chosen as the fall of
the Roman Empire. One commonly accepted date chosen as the beginning of the
fall of Rome falls in the middle of the fourth century CE. If that is our start time, then the group of
nations that divided up the Roman Empire consists of the Anglo-Saxons, the
Franks, the Suevi, the Visigoths, the Burgunians, the Alamanni (later replaced
by the Huns), the Lombards, the Ostrogoths, the Heruli and the Vandals. And here we see the beginning of individual
European nations such as France, Germany, Spain, etc.
Following all these beasts and horns Daniel saw Jesus
returning to the earth and setting up his kingdom.
“I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like the Son of Man was coming…
His dominion is an everlasting
dominion
Which will not pass away…” Daniel 7: 13, 14