HOMILETICS
SECT. XXII.—THE VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS (Chap. Daniel 7:1-7)
We now come to the second and principal part of the Book of Daniel, the prophetical portion, the narratives it contains being merely introductory to the visions. The present, as well as the succeeding chapter, chronologically anterior to the preceding one, this vision having been given in the first year of the reign of Belshazzar, probably twenty-three before the events narrated in the preceding chapter; the editor or arranger of the book, whether Ezra or Daniel himself, having for convenience placed the narrative before the present and following Chapter s, in order to preserve uninterrupted the continuity of the prophecies.
The present chapter, in its matter as well as its position, the central portion of the book. It is in both respects to the Book of Daniel what the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is to that epistle. Next to the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and perhaps the ninth chapter of this same book, we have here the most precious and prominent portion of the sure word of Messianic prophecy. The chapter worthy of the most careful prayer and study. Referred to directly or indirectly by Christ and His apostles perhaps more than other portions of the Old Testament of similar extent. Appears to have been regarded by the Old Testament Church, in the centuries preceding the Messiah’s first advent, as pre-eminently the “word of prophecy.” The same apparently in the New Testament Church till the Revelation of John was vouchsafed for its guidance. The Saviour’s chosen title of “the Son of Man,” as well as the declaration of His future coming “in the clouds of heaven,” obviously taken from this chapter. So Paul’s description of the “Man of Sin” in his second Epistle to the Thessalonians (chap. 2) Frequent and obvious parallels between its images and predictions and those of the Book of Revelation, more especially those connected with the ten-horned beast (Revelation 13:1-7), the Lord’s second Advent, the reign of Christ and His saints, and the final judgment.
The vision not understood by Daniel, till at his own request it was explained to him by one of the angels present in it; an indication at once of our duty and privilege in relation to the study of the word of prophecy. The vision and its interpretation given for our sakes especially, “on whom the ends of the world have come.” One part of the Holy Spirit’s office to show us things to come, which have been already “noted in the Scripture of truth;” while it is our part to imitate the prophet in “searching what or what manner of time the Spirit that was in them did signify, when he showed beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow” (1 Peter 1:11).
This, as well as the prophecies that follow, delivered in Daniel’s own name, the reason being because the visions were communicated to him personally. Daniel not now a narrator of events, but a witness of what had been delivered to himself. Difference of the person used, no evidence of a difference of authorship. Authors known to employ both the first and third person in their narratives. The unity of the two parts of the book indicated by the sameness of the spirit, the style, and the interdependence of the parts upon each other. The contents of both portions, however, probably written at different times.
The language employed in this chapter still the Chaldaic [150], which, however, ceases with the close of it, the remaining portion of the book being in Hebrew. The reason apparently found in the nature and object of the two parts thus differently written. The Chaldaic probably by this time as much or more the language of the Jews in Babylon than their own Hebrew, as it continued to be that of those in Palestine afterwards. This also the language of the Targums, translations or rather paraphrases of the Old Testament when the Hebrew ceased to be the spoken language of the Jews.
[150] “This chapter,” says Brightman, “is written in the common tongue of the heathenish kingdom, that the common prophecy might come abroad unto all. The vision in the next chapter is in the proper tongue of the holy people; the prophet thus intimating that this in the seventh chapter is more general, that in the eighth more particular, as also those which follow to the end of the chapter.”
The vision of the Four Beasts corresponds to that of the Great Image in chap. 2. This given in a dream to Daniel, as that had been to Nebuchadnezzar. The interpretation given by an angel at the same time. The whole vision committed to writing probably soon after its communication to the prophet, being intended to form a part of Sacred Scripture, as it has done since the canon of the Old Testament was completed in the days of Ezra and Malachi; thus securing accuracy, and giving permanency to the inspiration for the benefit of succeeding ages. Hence the prophets often commanded to commit their revelations to writing. See Isaiah 8:1; Isaiah 30:8; Jeremiah 30:2; Habakkuk 2:2; Revelation 1:11; Revelation 21:5. Daniel not only “wrote the dream,” but “told the sum of the matters” to his friends and countrymen about him (Daniel 7:1). The prophets in general preachers as well as writers. Their hearers called their “children” and “disciples” (Isaiah 8:16-18). Figuratively, their “threshing” and the “corn of their floor” (Isaiah 21:10). The Sabbath and the new moon the ordinary days for their public ministration (2 Kings 4:23). Daniel, however, rather a prophet by gift than by office, and his communications to others, therefore, probably more private.
The effect of the vision on the prophet himself powerful and disturbing. “My cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me” (Daniel 7:28). So the corresponding vision afforded to Nebuchadnezzar “troubled his spirit” (chap. Daniel 2:1). Still stronger language used by Habakkuk, in describing the effect produced upon himself by the disclosure of the future communicated to him (Habakkuk 3:16).
The present vision, in some of its leading features, a repetition of that afforded fifty years before to Nebuchadnezzar, accompanied, however, with important additions; a circumstance tending to give special weight to the vision, and to draw particular attention to it; while confirmation was thus given to both visions, and the interpretation of each rendered both more easy and more memorable [151]. The vision given to Daniel and the Church for the sake of the additions), especially that relating to the “little horn.” The former part of the vision already clearly accomplished; the latter part manifestly approaching its fulfilment. The vision affords a compendious history of the world from the time of Daniel to that of Christ’s millennial kingdom, in so far as that history stands more immediately related to the Church both of the Old and New Testament. The Saviour’s exhortation in reference to another portion of Daniel’s prophecies, eminently applicable to this: “Let him that readeth understand.” David’s, or perhaps Daniel’s own prayer, here particularly suitable and necessary: “Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law” (Psalms 119:18).
[151] According to Calvin, the repetition is given for greater clearness, and in token of the certainty of the prophecy. This repetition, Archdeacon Harrison remarks, is “according to the method of divine prediction, presenting at first a general sketch and outline, and afterwards a more complete and finished picture of events.” Sir Isaac Newton observes “that the prophecies of Daniel are all of them related to one another, as if they were but several parts of one general prophecy, given at several times;” and that “every following prophecy adds something new to the former.”
The subject of the vision is the four great or universal monarchies, here represented under the figure of so many wild beasts, as they were in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream under that of a great and splendid image, with its four parts composed of different materials; together with another and everlasting kingdom which should succeed them all. The four beasts are said in the interpretation to be “four kings,” or, as in the Greek version, “four kingdoms, that should arise out of the earth” (Daniel 7:17). The same object—the kingdoms of this world—thus presented under very different aspects to the carnal, worldly-minded monarch, and to the godly, spiritually-minded prophet. To the carnal, unrenewed man, the world appears as a dazzling show; to the spiritual and renewed, a hateful reality of ambition, selfishness, rapacity, cruelty, and oppression, resembling so many wild beasts contending for the mastery [152]. These four beasts or kingdoms, however, are only introduced to show what was God’s purpose in reference to the establishment of His own kingdom or that of the Messiah, which, like the stone in chap. 2, should remove and succeed them all, and which should last for ever.
[152] “Four great beasts.” “The image appeared with a glorious lustre in the imagination of Nebuchadnezzar, whose mind was wholly taken up with admiration of worldly pomp and splendour; whereas the same monarchies were represented to Daniel under the shape of fierce wild beasts, as being the great supporters of idolatry and tyranny in the world.”—Grotius. Auberlen points out more fully and profoundly the distinction between the two visions. “The outward political history had been shown in general features to the worldly ruler; for by his position he was peculiarly and almost exclusively fitted to receive a revelation of this kind. But the prophet obtains more minute disclosures, especially on the spiritual and religious character of the powers of the world, and such as were best adapted to his position and his receptivity. This difference of character easily explains the difference of images. While in the second chapter they are taken from the sphere of the inanimate, which has only an external side, they are chosen in the seventh chapter from the sphere of the animate. Further, as Nebuchadnezzar saw things only from without, the world-power appeared to him in its glory as a splendid human figure, and the kingdom, from its humility, as a stone: at first he beheld the world-power more glorious than the kingdom of God. Daniel, on the other hand, to whom it was given to penetrate farther into the inner essence of things, saw that the kingdoms of the world, notwithstanding their defiant power, are of a nature animal and lower than human; that their minds are estranged from and even opposed to God; that only in the kingdom of God is the true dignity of humanity revealed; and accordingly, the kingdom of God appears to him from the outset, and in the very selection of images, superior to the kingdoms of the world.… The colossal figure that Nebuchadnezzar beheld represents mankind in its own strength and greatness; but however splendid, it presents only the outward appearance of a man. But Daniel, regarding mankind in its spiritual condition, saw humanity, through its alienation from God, degraded to the level of reasonless animals, enslaved by the dark powers of nature.”
It is noticeable that the three beasts here mentioned by name are those which the Lord threatened by Hosea to send against Israel for their apostasy and sins, the lion, the leopard, and the bear, while a fourth was added as simply “a wild beast,” corresponding with the fourth in the vision without a name (Hosea 13:7-8); clearly indicating the relation which these world-kingdoms bear to Israel and the Church, as, in the hand and according to the pleasure of God, instruments of chastisement for unfaithfulness. Similar figures to indicate the powers of the world not unfrequently employed by the prophets. So Jeremiah 4:7; Jeremiah 5:6; Psalms 68:30. Men in their natural condition, as fallen and without the renewing grace of God, often similarly represented under the figure of savage beasts. (See Psalms 10:9-10; Psalms 57:4; Psalms 58:4; Psalms 58:6; Psalms 59:6.) In more senses than one men rendered by sin “like the beasts that perish.”
The four beasts in the vision are represented as coming up out of the great sea when thrown by opposing winds into tempestuous commotion (Daniel 7:23). Such a sea a picture of the great world of mankind in its alienation from God and consequent dispeace (Isaiah 48:22; Isaiah 57:21). The origin of the great monarchies of the world the conflicting passions and commotions among men. Nimrod “began (was the first) to be a mighty one in the earth: he was a mighty hunter before the Lord” (Genesis 10:8-9). The Mediterranean, on which Daniel had often looked when in his native country, often called “the Great Sea,” as distinguished from the smaller bodies of water in Palestine. It was on the borders or in the vicinity of that sea that the four great contending monarchies lay. The “four winds of the heaven,” by which the great sea was tossed into a tumult, probably intended to represent the external means and circumstances by which God in His holy providence operates on the nations and rulers of the world, thereby arousing them into action, while He wisely overrules and controls their own carnal passions.
It is also worthy to be observed that the number of monarchies represented both in the vision of the king and the prophet is the same, namely, four; an evidence itself of the divine origin of the book, when taken in connection with the remarkable fact that there have never been more than four great universal monarchies in the world, though some, as Charlemagne and Napoleon Buonaparte, have laboured hard to establish a fifth. The four, as already seen in connection with Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, are those of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome [153]. From this general view of the vision we may note—
[153] “This opinion,” observes Keil, “which has been recently maintained by Hävernick, Hengstenberg, Hofmann Auberlen, Zündel, Kliefoth, C. P. Caspari, and H. L. Reichel, alone accords, without any force or arbitrariness, with the representation of these kingdoms in both visions, with each separately, as well as with both together.” Compare Comm, on chap. Daniel 2:36-45, section ix. page 41.
1. The importance of the word of prophecy. The repetition of the prophecy regarding the four great monarchies and the divine kingdom that was to succeed them, itself significant. Given first in a dream to Nebuchadnezzar and then in a vision vouchsafed to Daniel himself, the repeated revelation of the same things, under different forms, seems a clear intimation how important for the Church this communication appeared to the Spirit of God, whose it is to “show us things to come.” What God has thus so carefully given it can neither be safe nor right for His people to neglect. Especially is this the case with a prophecy which we know to apply to the times in which we live, and which has been given for our comfort and guidance in these last days. The words forming the preface to the Book of Revelation applicable here also. “Blessed are they that read, and they that hear the prophecy of this book, and that keep the things that are written therein; for the time is at hand” (Revelation 1:2).
2. All history within the foreknowledge and under the control of God. This vision exhibits the great leading events of the world’s history from the time of Daniel, projected in the word of prophecy as on a map. Hence not only foreknown, but so overruled as infallibly to come to pass. This without the slightest prejudice to or interference with the freedom of man’s will, and so without any diminution of his responsibility. God’s foreknowledge and man’s freedom—God’s purposes and man’s responsibility—solemnly and mysteriously compatible with each other. Both alike realities, however unable we may be in our present state to reconcile them. Now we know only in part. The Jews, not knowing their own Scriptures, fulfilled the same by crucifying their King and Saviour, to their deep and dire condemnation, under which, alas! they still lie. “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain” (Acts 2:23). The hands still wicked hands though fulfilling the secret counsel and foreknowledge of God. The same thing true in regard to the events of general history and individual life. The providence that appoints the establishment or overthrow of an empire presides over the fall of a sparrow, fixes the bounds of our habitation, and numbers the hairs of our head.
3. The true character of the kingdoms of this world. To Daniel these appear not as dazzling image, but as savage and irrational beasts, the symbols of selfishness, cruelty, rapacity, and strife, obeying the impulses of appetite and passion instead of the dictates of reason and conscience. History makes good the picture. The universal admission that sin has reduced men to the level of beasts. Paul’s description of fallen men apart from divine grace, as given in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, verified by the testimony of the heathen themselves. “Full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity” (Romans 1:29). The divine verdict—“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked”—realised by universal observation and experience. Time given fully to develop man’s need of a Saviour from sin before that Saviour came. Four thousand years only proved the divine testimony given at the time of the Flood to be true: “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21; Genesis 6:5). Man was shown to be sick unto death—desperately, and, to all human effort, incurably wicked; and the Healer came. “He shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
HOMILETICS
SECT. XXIII.—THE FOUR GREAT EMPIRES (Chap. Daniel 7:3-7; Daniel 7:17-24)
“These great beasts, which are four,” said the interpreting angel, “are four kings which shall arise out of the earth” (Daniel 7:17). By the four kings we are to understand not four separate individuals, but, as the Greek version has it, four kingdoms or empires, succeeding each other, as in the vision of the Great Image (chap. 2) These, as already remarked, are almost universally understood to be the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Greek or Macedonian, and the Roman. We now notice these empires separately as here described, leaving the description of the Little Horn for another section.
I. The first or Babylonian Empire. The first of the four beasts which Daniel beheld rising up out of the earth was a lion with eagle’s wings (Daniel 7:4). This figure common among the sculptures of Nineveh and the ruins of Persepolis [154]. A winged lion a fit symbol of the first or Babylonian Empire [155]; a lion being expressive of its superiority, and its wings of the rapidity of its conquests. Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar, as its representative in its best days, described by the prophets as the instrument of God’s chastisement of His people under the figure of a lion. See Jeremiah 4:7; Jeremiah 5:6; Jeremiah 49:19; Jeremiah 50:17. In the Great Image the same monarchy is represented by the head of gold, gold being among metals what the lion is among beasts. The figure of an eagle, the king of birds, also employed by the prophets to represent Nebuchadnezzar and his conquests. See Jeremiah 48:40; Jeremiah 49:22; Ezekiel 27:2; Habakkuk 1:6. The rapidity of those conquests seen in the fact that while, at the period of his father’s death, the empire comprehended Chaldea, Assyria, Arabia, Syria, and Palestine, Nebuchadnezzar greatly augmented it after his accession to the throne, adding to his tributary dominions both Egypt and Tyre. Ancient historians agree in considering him by far the greatest monarch of the East. The prophet, however, as he gazed upon the symbol, observed a change to pass upon it. “I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth (marg., by which it was lifted up, &c.), and made to stand upon its feet as a man; and a man’s heart was given to it” (Daniel 7:4). An arrest was to be laid upon those conquests, and a state of humiliation and timidity to succeed them. Babylon’s monarchs were to be no longer lions, but as private men, deprived of power and strength. Possibly also an allusion is made to the humiliation connected with Nebuchadnezzar’s madness, and his ultimate deliverance from it. Succeeding reigns only brought disaster to the Babylonian Empire; and Belshazzar, its last king, was so far from being “lion-hearted,” that he was afraid to engage in open battle with the Persians, or to accept the challenge of Cyrus to single combat. He trembled and his knees smote each other at the sight of the writing on the wall. According to Jeremiah’s prophecy, he and his nobles “became as women” (Jeremiah 51:30). The lion of Babylon was to be “put in fear” that he might “know himself to be but a man” (Psalms 9:20) [156].
[154] “Like a lion, and had eagle’s wings” (Daniel 7:4). Herder, Münther, &c., have pointed out the peculiarly Babylonian character which the animal symbolism in Daniel bears; and the recent excavations among the ruins of Babylon and Nineveh contain so many confirmations of the book being written after the captivity, as they show shapes of animals by which we are involuntarily reminded of those occurring here, and which suggest the thought that an acquaintance with sculptures of this kind may have proved a psychological preparation for the visions in the seventh and eighth Chapter s.—Hengstenberg. At the entrance to a temple at Birs Nimroud, says Keil, there has been found (Layard, (Babylon and Nineveh) such a symbolical figure, viz., a winged eagle with the head of a man. But the representation of nations and kingdoms by the images of beasts is much more widely spread, and affords the prophetic symbolism the necessary analogues and substrata for the vision. The Assyrian King Assur-bani-pal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, says in the inscription of one of his cylinders, in reference to Elam or Persia: “I broke the winged lions and bulls watching over the temple, all there were. I removed the winged bulls attending to the gates of the temples of Elam.”
[155] “The first” (Daniel 7:4). Dr. Rule observes that as the fourth or Roman beast was to be the fourth upon earth, so the first or Babylonian must not only be the first of the kingdoms in this prophetical series, but also the first upon earth: which is historically true. About two thousand years before Daniel, the young population of the post-diluvian world, being then “of one language and of one speech,” journeyed from the east, found a plain in the laud of Shinar, dwelt there, began to build a city and a tower, and on their speech being confounded, were scattered abroad on the face of the earth. But the city remained with a sufficient population settled in it, the first built after the Deluge, and retaining the name Babel to mark the confusion of language which there took place. That city was the first central seat of power; and though the royal residence was for some time in Nineveh, and Babylonia was included within the empire of Assyria, Babylon recovered its primeval majesty, and was again the seat of empire from Nabopolassar to Belshazzar, and so rightly counted the first kingdom upon earth. Callisthenes, a friend of Alexander the Great, and his companion at Babylon, b.c. 331, sent thence to Aristotle a series of observations on eclipses made in that city, which reached back 1903 years, i.e., from 2234 b.c. The face of the sky had thus been read and recorded on that spot for near two thousand years.
[156] “A man’s heart was given to it” (Daniel 7:4). Keil thinks that this, as well as the preceding expression, “lifted up,” when lying prostrate on the ground, to the right attitude of a human being, denotes that the beast nature was transformed to that of a man; and that in this description of the change that occurred to the lion there is, without doubt, a reference to what is said of Nebuchadnezzar in chap. 4. Although the words may not, however, as Hofmann and others think, refer directly to Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity, as here it is not the king but the kingdom that is the subject, yet Nebuchadnezzar’s madness was for his kingdom the plucking off of its wings. The completeness of the decay of Babylon under the second empire appears in the fact related by Strabo, that when Alexander completed the conquest of that empire about 331 b.c., he found the great temple of Belus in so ruined a condition, that it would have required the labour of ten thousand men for two months to clear away the rubbish with which it was encumbered.
II. The second or Medo-Persian Empire. This is represented by a bear raising itself upon one side, with three ribs in its month (Daniel 7:5). The great universal monarchy that succeeded the Babylonian, already, in chap. 2, seen to be the Persian or Medo-Persian. Its symbol, portrayed upon its standard, from the known character of its princes and people [157], one of the most bloodthirsty of animals. Compare Isaiah 13:18. The bear at the same time a less courageous as well as a less noble and magnanimous animal than the lion, though exceedingly strong and voracious [158]. Hence, “Arise and devour,” &c. Corresponds to the breast and arms of the image, which were of silver, as being inferior to the Babylonian Empire, the head of gold. The bear raising itself upon one side [159], apparently expressive of the fact, that while this second empire was at first under the confederate kings of Media and Persia, the former had first the pre-eminence in the person of Darius, but after his death the Persians under Cyrus rose to the sole dominion. The two powers of Media and Persia or Elam, as united in the overthrow of Babylon, pointed to nearly two centuries before by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 13:17; Isaiah 21:2). These separate powers represented in the Great Image by the two arms, and their coalescence under Cyrus by the breast. The three ribs in the bear’s mouth, and the command to “arise and devour much flesh,” indicative of the rapacity and conquests of the Medo-Persian Empire. The three ribs have been supposed by Sir Isaac Newton and others to indicate Lydia with its capital Sardis—the country of Crœsus, Babylon, and Egypt, which Cyrus added to his conquests, without their properly belonging, however, to the body of his empire [160]; while others, as Calvin, have considered them to be Media, Assyria, and Babylonia. The inferiority of the second empire to the first, indicated as well in the symbol of the image as that of the beasts, apparent under the successors of Cyrus, who are known to have sadly degenerated, giving attention to pomp and show rather than to real strength and valour [161]. It lasted also a shorter time, having only continued 206, or at most 230 years from Darius, its first monarch, who ascended the throne B.C. 538, till its overthrow by Alexander the Great in 332.
[157] “A second like to a bear” (Daniel 7:5). Bishop Newton says: Cambyses, Ochus, and others of their princes, were indeed more like bears than men. Instances of their cruelty abound in almost all the historians who have written of their affairs, from Herodotus down to Ammianus Marcellinus, who describes them as proud, cruel, exercising the power of life and death over slaves and obscure plebeians. “They pull off the skin (says he) from men alive, in pieces or altogether.” The cruelty of their modes of punishment indicative of the cruelty of their character. Rollin relates that one of the royal judges, condemned to death for receiving a bribe, was to have his skin taken off and fastened on the seat where he used to sit and give judgment, to be a warning to his son, who was to occupy it after him. Witness also the lions’ den.
[158] “Arise, devour much flesh” (Daniel 7:5). Next to the lion, the bear is the strongest among animals; and, on account of its voracity, it was called by Aristotle ζῶον παμφάγον, “an all-devouring animal.”—Keil.
[159] “Raised up itself on one side.” The margin reads: “raised up one kingdom,” after R. Nathan, who has, “and it established a dominion,” with which Kranichfeld agrees. Keil objects to this as irreconcilable with the line of thought, and also because חַד (khadh) is not the indefinite article, but the numeral; and the thought that the beast established one dominion, or a united dominion, is in the highest degree strange; for the character of a united or compact dominion belongs to the second world-kingdom no more than to the first, while it cannot belong to a beast or kingdom to establish a kingdom at all. שְׁטַר (shetar), or rather, as in Syriac and the Targums, שְׂטַר = סְטַר (setar), is rendered by the Sept. and other old translators, as well as by Saadias, “a side.” According to Calvin, who translates, “stood on one side,” the expression refers to the Persians having previously been without fame or reputation, as well as without wealth. Gesenius thinks it an image of the kingdom of the Medes being ordered by God, after having long lain, as it were, in ambush, to rise and attack Babylon. Keil, with Hofmann, Delitzsch, and Kliefoth, regards the figure as indicating, according to chaps. 2 and 8, the double-sidedness of this empire—the one side, the Median, being at rest after the efforts made for the erection of the world-kingdom; while the other, the Persian side, raises itself up, and then becomes higher than the first and prepared for new rapine.
[160] “Three ribs.” According to Xenophon, Cyrus, after the conquest of Babylon and Lydia, undertook an expedition in which he subdued all those nations which lie from the entrance into Syria as far as the Red Sea; while his next expedition was to Egypt, which he also subdued. Keil, with Hofmann, Ebrard, Zündel, and Kliefoth, understanding the bear as the Medo-Persian, and not merely the Median kingdom, considers the three ribs to denote the three kingdoms of Babylon, Lydia, and Egypt, conquered by the Medo-Persians.
[161] Xenophon relates that immediately upon the death of Cyrus his sons fell into dissension; cities and nations revolted, and everything tended to ruin. He adds the reflection, that the Persians and their allies have evidently less piety towards the gods, less dutiful regard to their relatives, less justice and equity in their dealings with others, and at the same time are more effeminate and less fitted for war than they were at their commencement as a nation.
III. The third or Grecian Empire. This represented by a leopard with four heads and four wings, and corresponding to the belly and thighs of brass in the Great Image. The Persian empire having gradually decayed under the successors of Cyrus, it at length entirely succumbed to the power of Greece under Alexander the Great. The eager and fiery nature of this renowned conqueror symbolised by the leopard, an animal remarkable for its swiftness and the eagerness with which it springs upon its prey. Rollin observes that after the siege of Tyre, the character of Alexander degenerated into debauchery and cruelty. When Gaza, after a protracted resistance, was at length taken, Alexander manifested the cruelty of his character by ordering a thousand of its inhabitants to be put to death, and its governor to be dragged round the walls by ropes passed through his heels till he died. The spots of the leopard supposed to indicate the variety of the nations that constituted the Grecian empire, as the four wings plainly pointed to the rapidity of the Grecian conquests [162]. The four heads the prophetic symbol of the well-known division of the Grecian Empire into four parts soon after Alexander’s death. After a series of intrigues and murders, with a view to the succession, in which his mother, his wife Roxana, his brother, and his son, all perished by a violent death, the empire fell into the hands of the four principal generals, who divided it between them—Cassander holding Macedon and Greece; Lysimachus, Thrace and Asia Minor; Ptolemy, Egypt, Palestine, and Arabia Petræa; and Seleucus, Syria and the remainder, including Upper Asia or the Eastern Empire. The two last, especially in relation to the Jewish people, the most prominent and important. The fourfold division of the Greek Empire distinctly exhibited in the vision of the Ram and He-goat in chap. Daniel 8:21-22.
[162] “Four wings of a fowl” (Daniel 7:6). The victories and triumphs of the Greeks in the Persian war are well known to the reader of history: how in the time of Darius Hystaspes, b.c. 490, an army of 300,000 Persians was defeated by 11,000 Greeks at Marathon; and how Xerxes, his successor, lost nearly the whole of his fleet at Salamis only ten years after, while the remainder of his troops, left to prosecute the war in Greece, were nearly all cut in pieces in the following year at the battle of Platæa, his fleet being defeated on the same day at Mycale. The decisive blow to the power of Persia, however, was not given till about a hundred and fifty years after by Alexander the Great, who, born at Pella, in Macedonia, b.c. 356, succeeded his father, Philip, as king of Macedon, when only twenty years of age. Appointed generalissimo of the Greeks, he undertook an expedition against the Persians, while Darius Codomannus, the last king of Persia, was on the throne; defeated with 35,000 men an army of 100,000 Persians on the banks of the Granicus, and gained a similar victory in the following year at Issus in Cilicia. The fall of all Asia Minor followed; and soon after that of insular or new Tyre, which Alexander took, according to the word of prophecy, by connecting the island with the mainland by means of a causeway formed out of the materials of old Tyre. The final blow was given to Persia at the battle of Arbela, in Assyria, b.c. 331, when the Persians were twenty times the number of the Greeks. “When you next address me,” said Alexander, in reply to an offer of capitulation by Darius, “call me not only king, but your king.” The conquests of the winged leopard did not, however, stop till, having subdued the Medes, Parthians, Hyrcanians, Bactrians, and Sogdians, he crossed the Indus with the intention of penetrating into India, and was only obliged to turn back by the unwillingness of his army to proceed any farther. As further illustrative of the truth of the image, it is said that his movements were so rapid that his enemies were usually taken by surprise, and that he was able to pursue them on horseback for days and nights together, like a panther after his prey. “Can Alexander, who can do all things, fly also? And has nature on a sudden given him wings?” asked the confident defender of a rocky height of the messenger sent by Alexander. The height, however, was taken. “You see,” said the conquerors, “Alexander’s soldiers have wings.”
IV. The fourth or Roman Empire. The fourth empire is represented by a beast without a name, as if no existing animal could be found sufficient for the symbol [163]. It is described “as diverse from all the rest; dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, having great iron teeth; devouring, breaking in pieces, and stamping the residue with its feet” (Daniel 7:7). The corresponding part of the Great Image is the legs and feet, which were of iron, with a mixture of clay in the feet and toes; like the fourth beast, bruising and breaking to pieces. The identity of the empire symbolised in both cases obvious from the fact that the fourth beast is particularly represented as having ten horns, plainly corresponding with the ten toes of the image. According to the all but unanimous belief of both Jews and Christians, the empire indicated is that of Rome, which, as is well known, succeeded that of Greece. The iron in both the symbols indicative of the sternness of the people, and of the strength, duration, and destructiveness of the empire. The ten horns which characterised the fourth beast, like the ten toes of the image, symbolical of ten kingdoms which should be formed out of the empire in its state of weakness and decay [164]. Compare what is said in reference to the toes of the Great Image. It may only farther be noticed here in regard to the ten horns, that this circumstance connected with the fourth beast appears plainly to identify that beast with another mentioned in Revelation 12:1; Revelation 18:3; Revelation 18:12, whose ten horns are also said to be “ten kings,” but which had “received no kingdom as yet” (Revelation 17:12), that is, at the time the vision was given to the apostle; which makes it further manifest that the fourth beast or empire could be no other than the Roman. A new feature, and one of the most remarkable, being that for which more especially this second vision of the four great empires was given, is the rise of another or eleventh horn, called the “little horn,” but which in its character, pretensions, and actual doings was the most formidable of all, and with which more than all the rest the Church of God was to have to do. As this will be considered in a section by itself, we may only notice the following thoughts as suggested by the prophecy of the four beasts.
[163] “A fourth beast, diverse from all the others” (Daniel 7:7; Daniel 7:19). Thought by some of the Jews to be the wild boar, according to Psalms 80:13. Not named, says Theodoret, from the changeable form of its government, kings, generals, tribunes, &c. According to Jerome, from its supereminent cruelty. Its diverseness from the others, Calvin ascribes to the composite character of the Roman people, the senatorial, equestrian, and plebeian ranks. That the Roman empire is intended the all but universal opinion. Some Jews, as Aben Ezra and R. Saadias, wish to make it the Turkish empire, including the Roman in the third, in order to avoid the conclusion that the Messiah has already appeared. Pfaff thinks that both the tyranny of the Turks and of the Popes is included under this fourth beast. Calvin thinks only of the Roman empire up to the first Advent of Christ. Willet, after Polychronius, Junius, Polanus, and others, interprets it of the kingdom of Syria, in which ten kings succeeded each other, the last of whom they suppose was Antiochus Epiphanes, the little horn; though typically of the Roman empire foreshadowed under it, John’s vision of the beast (Revelation 13:1), or the Roman empire, having reference to this of Daniel.
[164] “And in had ten horns.” Some have understood the number ten as indefinite, indicating, as Augustine thinks, the whole of the kings in the Roman empire up to the coming of Antichrist; or, as Calvin, the several provinces or kingdoms of that empire; or as others, the kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided and dissolved on its first partition into the Eastern and Western empires. Most, however, consider it to be a certain number. Some think of the kings who in the end should divide the empire between them. Thus Jerome says, “Let us say, what all ecclesiastical writers have handed down, that in the consummation of the world, when the kingdom of the Romans is about to be destroyed, there will be ten kings who shall divide the Roman world among them.” Irenæus had said in the second century, “Daniel, looking to the end of the last kingdom, that is, the ten kings among whom shall be divided the empire of those upon whom the Son of Perdition shall come, saith that ten horns did grow upon the beast. And more manifestly still hath John, the disciple of our Lord, signified concerning the last time and the ten kings which are in it, among whom shall be divided the kingdom which now reigns, explaining in the Apocalypse what were the ten horns which were seen by Daniel;” thus showing, as Archdeacon Harrison remarks, “how the earliest Christian expositors identified with the imagery before us that which reappears in the visions of the Apocalypse.” Most understand the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided in consequence of the invasion of the Northern nations. J. D. Michaelis remarks that “the number of the kingdoms in the great community of Europe moves, so to speak, fluctuatingly about this round number (ten), being sometimes more and sometimes less.” Hengstenberg thinks, however, that probably, at the time of the final fulfilment, the number ten will be a definite one. Auberlen observes that the reference in the Revelation to this fourth beast of Daniel “overthrows the whole modern view of the fourth beast (being the Greek kingdom), and of the four beasts in general; it overthrows hereby, secondly, the theory that the prophecies of Daniel are limited to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes; and it consequently overthrows, thirdly, the chief argument brought forward against the genuineness of our book.” “Rationalism,” observes Dr. Pusey, “has come round to the same view.” “I agree,” says Bleek, “with Auberlen, that the ten horns of the fourth beast cannot be meant of ten successive Syrian kings (as Bertholdt, V. Lengerke, Maurer, Hitzig, and Delitzsch think); nor of ten kings, some Syrian and some Egyptian (as Rosenmüller, &c., and Porphyry of old); but rather of the single portions into which the kingdom was divided.”
In like manner Rosenmüller and some other Germans endeavoured to make this beast to be the Greek empire in Asia after Alexander’s death. But Bleek, who is one of them, admits, “We are induced by Daniel 7:8, where it is said of the little horn that it would rise up between the ten horns, to think of ten contemporaneous kings, or rather kingdoms, existing along with each other, which rise out of the fourth kingdom.” Therefore he will “not deny that the reference to the successors of Alexander is rendered obscure by the fact that chap. 8. speaks of four monarchies which arise out of that of Alexander after his death.” In opposition to the view that the parts of Alexander’s kingdom which became independent kingdoms might be numbered in different ways, and the number ten be made out from the number of the generals who retained the chief provinces, Zündel justly observes: “These kingdoms could only have significance if this number, instead of being a selection from the whole, had been itself the whole. But this is not the case. For at that time the kingdom, according to Justin, was divided into more than thirty parts.” According to Dr. Todd and the Futurists, the power indicated is one yet to be developed, as the precursor of the final Antichrist. Sir Isaac Newton observes that the Romans conquered the kingdom of Macedon, Illyricum, and Epirus in the eighth year of Antiochus Epiphanes, b.c. 167; that of Pergamos thirty-five years afterwards; Syria sixty-four years later, and Egypt after other thirty-nine years; and that by these and other conquests the fourth beast became greater and more terrible than any of the three preceding ones. Dionysius Halicarnassus, after enumerating the earlier empires of the world, the Assyrian or Babylonian, the Persian, and the Grecian, says, “The empire of the Romans pervades all regions of the earth which are not inaccessible, but are inhabited by mankind; it reigns also over the whole sea, and is the first and only one that has made the east and west its boundaries; and that there is no people that does not recognise Rome as the universal mistress, or that refuses to submit to its dominion.” Professor Bush says, “As the fourth beast of Daniel lives and acts through the space of 1260 years (the ‘time, times, and dividing, or half of a time,’ Daniel 7:25), and as the seven-headed and ten-horned beast of John prevails through the same period, I am driven to the conclusion that they adumbrate precisely the same thing—that they are merely different aspects of the same reality; and this I have no question is the Roman empire.” Keil observes, after an elaborate proof of his premises: “Since, then, neither the division of the Medo-Persian kingdom into the Median and the Persian is allowable, nor the identification of the fourth kingdom (chaps. 2. and 7.) with the Javanic (the Greek or Macedonian) world-kingdom in chap. 8., we may regard as correct the traditional Church view that the four world-kingdoms are the Chaldean (or Babylonian), the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman.”
1. The fulfilment of this prophecy an unquestionable fact, and as such, an evidence of the reality of prophecy in the sense of prediction, and of the divinity of at least this part of the Old Testament Scripture The fulfilment of prophecy employed by God Himself as an evidence of His deity (Isaiah 41:22-23; Isaiah 41:26; Isaiah 45:21; Isaiah 46:9-10). Declared to be the criterion of a divine messenger, except when the object is to lead away from God’s worship and revealed truth (Deuteronomy 18:21-22; Deuteronomy 13:1; Deuteronomy 13:3; Isaiah 8:20). The fulfilment of the prophecy before us undeniable, notwithstanding all attempts to set it aside. This and other predictions of Daniel acknowledged even by enemies to be true up to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, one of the Syrian kings in the third or Grecian empire, but denied to have been written before that period, and therefore maintained to be mere history and not prophecy. But the prophecy as truly fulfilled after that period as before it, and receiving its fulfilment at the present time. The fourth empire and the predicted facts connected with it more remarkable than any of its three predecessors, and to human foresight impossible to have been calculated upon. Yet that empire and those facts a reality which is before our eyes at the present day. An empire of iron crushing strength succeeding a third, acknowledged to be that of Greece, and in its latter period becoming weak by foreign admixture, and divided into ten kingdoms, with one rising up among them or after them of a description totally different from all the rest. These are simple facts, and found in a prediction delivered twenty-four centuries ago. With the convinced magicians of Egypt we may well exclaim, “This is the finger of God.” “I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass ye might know that I am He” (John 13:29).
2. The certainty of predicted events that have not yet taken place. Past fulfilment only makes the word of prophecy “more sure” or confirmed, that we may “take heed” to it, as to a “light shining in a dark place” (2 Peter 1:19). While much of the present chapter, as well as of other prophecy, has been fulfilled, much of it still awaits its fulfilment. The destruction of the fourth beast with its “little horn” has not yet taken place, nor has its body yet been “given to the burning flame;” the Son of Man has not yet come “with the clouds of heaven;” nor has the kingdom been “given to the saints of the Most High.” Yet, as certainly as one part of the vision has been fulfilled, so certainly shall the other. Eighteen centuries ago, Jesus, after He had ascended with the clouds into heaven, said, “Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man as his work shall be.” As surely as the fourth predicted beast with its iron teeth came into existence and devoured and brake in pieces, so surely shall it be destroyed and its body given to the burning flame, and Jesus Christ come again with the clouds of heaven and take the kingdom, and the kingdom be given to the saints of the Most High, who shall reign with Christ for ever and ever (Daniel 7:11; Daniel 7:13-14; Daniel 7:18; Revelation 5:10; Revelation 11:15).
3. Matter for thanksgiving and rejoicing that the kingdoms of this world are to be succeeded by one of a very different character. The kingdoms of the world are those of the four beasts, wherever they may have their place. These kingdoms naturally characterised by sin and suffering. Such the experience of the world up to the present time. The history of these kingdoms written in tears and blood; but they are not to be for ever. Three of the four have, as predicted long ago, come to their end. The fourth, which in its divided form is now going on, is not to be everlasting. The everlasting one is yet to come. Its foundations have already long ago been laid, but as yet it is far from being the mountain that is to fill the whole earth. But the time of this consummation hastens apace. The kingdom that is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost” will ere long constitute the monarchy of the Man Christ Jesus, the King of the Jews, which shall fill the earth and last for ever. Men shall yet everywhere be blessed in Christ, and all nations call Him blessed. The sure word of prophecy gladdens the Church with the hope of good times coming—glory to God in the highest, with peace on earth, under the reign of Him who is the Prince of Peace.