Daniel 7:1-8
Bible verses · Also called: Daniel 7:1-8, Dan. 7:1-8, Daniel's Vision of the Four Beasts, The Four Beasts of Daniel 7
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1 In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters.
2 Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.
3 And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
4 The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man’s heart was given to it.
5 And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.
6 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.
7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
8 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: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
The text is the New Korean Revised Version (1998), shown under a licence from the Korean Bible Society. Wording may differ slightly from the Korean Revised Version and the Revised New Korean Standard Version. Read in the Korean Revised Version
In this passage Daniel sees in a dream four beasts rising out of the sea and a little horn springing up among ten horns. Because interpreters disagree about which kingdoms the four beasts represent and who the little horn is, the passage is frequently cited in discussions of eschatology.
Context
Chapter 7 of Daniel is the first chapter of the visionary material in the second half of the book. From the latter part of 2:4 through the end of chapter 7, the text is written in Aramaic, the common language of the ancient Near East. The vision is dated to "the first year of Belshazzar," which places it before the events of chapters 5 and 6. Daniel sees the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four beasts, each different from the others, come up out of it. The first is a lion with eagle's wings, the second a bear with three ribs in its mouth, and the third a leopard with four wings and four heads. The fourth is a terrifying beast with iron teeth and ten horns; among these horns a "little horn" comes up, plucks up three of the horns, and speaks "great things." Verses 9-14 go on to describe the judgment of the "Ancient of days" and "one like the Son of man," and verse 17 interprets the four beasts as "four kings." Because its structure resembles that of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the great image in chapter 2, the two chapters are often read together.
Interpretation
- Traditional reading: Widely accepted since the early Church Fathers, this interpretation identifies the four beasts as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. The lion standing upright like a man is linked to the account of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4, and the leopard with four wings and four heads is taken to represent Alexander the Great's swift conquests and the division of his empire into four parts after his death. This reading is common in commentaries from conservative Korean denominations.
- Historicist reading: Many Reformers of the Reformation era identified the little horn with the papacy. The Seventh-day Adventist Church holds this interpretation today.
- Dispensationalist reading: Dispensationalism interprets the fourth beast as a Roman system to be revived in the last days, the ten horns as a future confederation of ten nations, and the little horn as the Antichrist, linking the passage to Revelation 13.
- Historical-critical reading: Many biblical scholars identify the four kingdoms as Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece. They regard the ten horns as kings of the Seleucid dynasty and the little horn as Antiochus IV, who persecuted Judaism in the second century BC. These scholars hold that the Book of Daniel reached its final form around that time.
Debates and Issues
The central questions are whether the fourth kingdom is Rome or Greece, and whether the little horn is a figure of the past or of the future. These judgments are closely tied to one's view of when the Book of Daniel was written. Daniel 8:20-21 identifies the ram and the he goat as "the kings of Media and Persia" and "the king of Grecia," respectively, and interpreters also differ on how this identification should bear on the interpretation of chapter 7. Some popular dispensationalist books of the 1970s and 1980s equated the ten horns with the European Community of that time. Interpretations of this kind, which match the symbols to specific current events, have been criticized within a number of denominations as overly contrived.
In the Korean Church
The passage is frequently treated in sermons on eschatology and in Bible studies on Daniel and Revelation. It is usually explained by connecting the symbols of the beasts and horns with historical empires.
Related Passages
- Daniel 2:31-45
- Daniel 7:17-27
- Daniel 8:20-22
- Revelation 13:1-10
- 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
See also 8
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