The Book of

Daniel the Prophet

 DANIEL 7
Awesome Beasts of Prophecy
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy;
whereunto ye do well that ye take heed:”
2 Peter 1:19
“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.“
Daniel 7:1
In the books of Daniel and
Revelation, the same history
is told over and over again,
with each different view
adding information to the
total picture. When all these
pieces are put together by a
careful student under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit -
we see a detailed picture of
history and future events.
This kind of knowledge is not available to the casual Bible
reader, or to the critics and skeptics, no matter how
educated or clever they think themselves to be. Remember
how the so-called 'wise-men' and magicians of Daniel's day
could not interpret the messages from God? It is the same
today.
A child, who loves God and honestly wants to obey Him and
learn the Truth, will understand what the great men of the
world cannot know. It's part of the Mystery of the Holy Bible.
“Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and,
behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great
sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one
from another.” Daniel 7:2-3
Belshazzar had come to the throne of Babylon, and as we saw before, he
didn’t want godly people like Daniel around his court. What Daniel’s job was
at this time we are not told. One night God gave him a dream and in the
dream he saw a raging sea, tossed by the four winds, and out of that sea
came four strange beasts, one at a time following each other.
We are learning how to understand the great prophecies of
the Bible. This is a wonderful study and you will really enjoy
it. The books of Daniel and Revelation are really part of the
same prophecy and they both help us to understand what
the prophecies mean.
There is a big rule in prophecy that you must learn if you
don’t want to get all mixed up. We must always find the
meanings of the prophecies in the Bible itself.
If we just read something and then I say, “I think it means
this”, and you say, “I think it means that”, we will get all
mixed up. This is what most people do when they read
prophecy and it gets to be a mess.
In prophecy the waters or ‘great sea’ means people and
nations on earth: Revelation 17:15 “…The waters which thou
sawest, … are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and
tongues.”
The ‘four winds’ mean war, trouble and strife: Revelation 7:1
“And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four
corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that
the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on
any tree.”
Beasts represent kingdoms or nations: Daniel 7:23 Thus he
said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth.

When we see the beasts come up out of the water when the
winds blow, we know they came to power by war and battle.
To Daniel was given a vision of fierce beasts, representing the
powers of the earth. But the symbol of the Messiah's kingdom
is a lamb. While earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendancy of
physical power (force), Christ is to banish every manmade
weapon, every instrument of coercion (force). His kingdom
was to be established to uplift and ennoble fallen humanity.
Forcing people to worship or obey God, even in
something that in itself is right, is not what God
wants. He only wants people to serve Him
because they want to and choose to.
“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.” Daniel 7:4
The winged lion showed
power and speed. It
represented Babylon and
was even used as a symbol
by Nebuchadnezzar.
Archeologists
have seen stones
from Babylon with
lions and even
winged lions on
them.
Under Nebuchadnezzar the kingdom was swift and
powerful but later it became weak and foolish under
Belshazzar. This is what the wings being plucked and the
lion standing up with only a timid man’s heart, showed.

Luxury, indulgence, and soft living changed the mighty lion

into a weak sissy.
“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.” Daniel 7:5
Next came this bear, which was
higher on one side than the other.
This was Medo-Persia and it was
a combination of two powers and
the one power, Persia, was
stronger.
The character of this power is well
represented by a bear. The Medes
and Persians were cruel and
greedy, robbers and spoilers of the
people.
It had three ribs in its mouth, which
meant the three areas that Medo-
Persia conquered to come to rule the
world; Babylon, Lydia and Egypt,
which were especially ground down
and oppressed by this power. It was a
cruel and vicious nation and killed
many people. That’s why the verse
says “Arise and devour much flesh”.
 “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.” Daniel 7:6
Wings in Prophecy = Speed
This was the kingdom of Greece
under Alexander the Great. It
conquered the world so fast that
the leopard beast is shown with
four wings. A leopard is a fast
animal without wings but with four
wings God showed it would be
very fast.
The four heads
represented the four
generals of
Alexander the Great,
which took over the
kingdom following
Alexander’s death
just after he had
conquered the entire
world.
These were: Cassander, who had Greece and its area;
Lysimachus, who had Asia-minor; Ptolemy, who had Egypt;
and Seleucus, who had Syria and Babylon.
It is important to know how Alexander died as there is a
lesson there for youth. He could conquer nations but he
could not control his appetite, passions and pride.
He worshipped the gods Hercules and Bacchus (god of
wine) and tried to imitate what they were said to have done.
He claimed to be a god himself and when one of his
generals died, he told people to worship him as a god. He
delighted in drinking and parties and when drunk could fly
into a rage and kill even his friends.
He did many cruel and bloodthirsty acts, once burning an
entire city on the suggestion of a wicked woman.
He encouraged such excessive drinking among his
followers that on one occasion twenty of them together died
as the result of the party. At length, having sat through one
long drinking spree, he was immediately invited to another,
when after drinking to each of the twenty guests present, he
twice drank full, says history, incredible as it may seem, the
Herculean cup containing six of our quarts.
He thereupon fell down, seized with a violent fever, of which
he died eleven days later, in May or June, B.C. 323. He was
only thirty two years old.
Compare
Alexander the
Great with the
prophet Daniel
who decided not to
eat the king’s rich
food or drink his
wine.
 ”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.”
Daniel 7:7
Now came up out of
the angry sea a beast
so terrible that no real
animal could
represent it! Different
from the other beasts,
it was very strong and
devoured and broke
nations to pieces.
The iron teeth remind us of the iron of the legs and feet of
the great image of chapter 2.

You see there are four series of prophecies in Daniel. Each

one tells the same story, but each one gives more detail to
the story.
In Daniel 2, the image
showed four world
kingdoms. Babylon; head
of gold; winged lion.
Medo-Pesia; arms of
silver; bear. Greece:
Thighs of brass; winged
leopard. And the Iron
Legs; Rome; The terrible
Beast.
Rome was different (Diverse) because it was a Republic
and the other ‘Beasts’ had kings. Rome had elected
‘dictators’ which were supposed to obey certain laws and
answer to the people of the nation; like USA presidents are
supposed to do.
But later the Caesars didn’t do this and became very much like
what the Pope would later be: not a king but rather a god. They
combined Church and State and God has forbidden this. God
can tell so much in the prophecies in just a few words!
Many Christians were martyred as they refused to worship
the Caesars as gods.
“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.” Daniel 7:8
 Now this Roman terrible beast had ten horns on his head
and Daniel looked closely at these horns. All of a sudden he
saw another little horn come up and it plucked up three
horns. Horns in Bible prophecy are kings, powers, or
kingdoms. (See verse 24)
Now, as Daniel is watching this strange ‘Little Horn’,
he is shown a complete change of scene: Find out
what he sees next in Part B.
Next: Daniel 7B