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.
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. Since Daniel lived under the kingdom of the first beast, and therefore needed not to describe it, and as the second and third are described fully in the second part of the book, the chief emphasis falls on the fourth. Also, prophecy most dwells on the end, which is the consummation of the preceding series of events. It is in the fourth that the world-power manifests fully its God-opposing nature.
And it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it. Whereas the three former kingdoms were designated respectively as a lion, bear, and leopard; no particular beast is specified as the image of the fourth; because Rome is so terrible as to be not describable by anyone, but combines in itself all that we can imagine inexpressibly fierce in all beasts. Hence, thrice (Daniel 7:7; Daniel 7:19; Daniel 7:23) it is repeated that the fourth was "diverse from all" the others. The formula of introduction, "I saw in the night visions," occurs here, as at Daniel 7:2, and again at Daniel 7:13, thus dividing the whole vision into THREE PARTS-the FIRST embracing the three kingdoms; the SECOND, the fourth and its overthrow; the THIRD, Messiah's kingdom. The first three together take up a few centuries; the fourth, thousands of years. The whole lower half of the image in Daniel 2:1-49 is given to it. And whereas the other kingdoms consist of only one material, this consists of two, iron and clay (on which much stress is laid, Daniel 2:41-43); the "iron teeth" here allude to one material in the fourth kingdom of the image.
And it had ten horns. It is with the crisis, rather than the course, of the fourth kindgom this seventh chapter is mainly concerned. The "ten horns" mean ten kings, according to Daniel 7:24 (a horn being the symbol representing power): the ten kingdoms into which Rome was divided on its incorporation with the Germanic and Slavonic tribes, and again at the Reformation, are though by many to be here intended by the ten kings. But the variation of the lists of the ten, and their ignoring the Eastern half of the empire altogether, and the existence of the Papacy before the breaking up of even the Western empire, instead of being the "little horn" springing up after the other ten, are against this view. The Western Roman empire continued until 731 AD; and the Eastern, until 1453 AD. The ten kingdoms, therefore, prefigured by the ten "toes," are the ten kingdoms into which Rome shall be found finally divided, when Antichrist shall appear (Daniel 2:41: cf. Revelation 13:1; Revelation 17:12). (Tregelles.) These, probably, are prefigured by the number ten being the prevalent one at the chief turning points of Roman history.