After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and exceeding strong; and it had great iron teeth it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the rest with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
Daniel has already watched three beasts rise out of the sea, and he could name each one — a lion, a bear, a leopard. The fourth breaks that pattern. No animal fits it, and it carries ten horns.
This beast has no animal to stand for it. Commentators say the vision leaves it nameless on purpose.
The fourth beast speaks mostly of events still to come. It matters so much that Daniel receives further details in a second vision. Nothing in nature can compare to this beast. It stands there on purpose as an unnatural monster, filling the one who sees it with dread and terror.
The same four empires appear twice in Daniel. In chapter 2 a king sees a great statue. Here a prophet sees wild animals. What changed is not the empires but who is looking.
When the four empires were shown in symbol to the Gentile king, they had their worldly aspect. There was the likeness of a great image, majestic in its proportions, made of the most costly, lasting, and useful of metals... Here is the world's estimate of imperial power and successful ambition, and the world bows down and worships. But the saint sees these same empires in symbol as unclean and terrifying beasts: greedy for blood, fierce, untameable. The last one went so far beyond the rest in those qualities that no animal known to man could set out its character. So a strange monster, a terror of nature, stood before the prophet's eye to picture the fourth empire. This gives us God's judgement about these empires, and shows what value His saints should put on their splendour and power.
The beast eats and it tramples. Writers apply both actions to Rome.
No doubt the Roman empire had all these awful features, bringing dread and terror to all who opposed it or attracted its greed; taking whatever served its purpose, and destroying what it could not use.
What the beast did not swallow, it stamped on. One writer spells out what that meant on the map.
It devoured and broke in pieces, and it stamped on what was left with its feet. That is to say, it took over the territories of previous empires and absorbed them into its own — not all of each empire, but its most important parts.
The verse says this beast was different from every beast before it. One writer finds that difference inside its own government.
It was an empire that kept a strong sense of the will of man — of the people. It combined certain republican elements with as iron a despotism as ever ruled in this world. These two things were brought into distinct, but seemingly harmonious, play.
Daniel sees the ten horns the moment the beast appears. One writer explains why the vision does not run in historical order.
We are not to look for the actual development of history in this vision. If we did, the ten horns would clearly not have been seen on the Roman beast when it first met the eyes of the prophet. The Spirit of God brings into the very first view the features that would be found at the close, and not at the beginning.
The verse ends with ten horns. One writer asks a plain historical question about them.
The last clause of verse 7 needs careful attention — "it had ten horns." Verse 24 tells us that these are ten kings. That raises an important question. When was anything of this kind seen in the Roman Empire of the past? For a long period it had only one head. Then for a considerable time three or four rulers held power together. But anything like what we have before us here has never yet been seen. What, then, are we to understand from the statements of our chapter? Just this: that the history of the Roman Empire is not finished, for no word of God can fall to the ground. So between the two last clauses of verse 7 there is a gap of many hundreds of years. That is not at all unusual in the prophetic Word.
What fills that gap? Writers point to the same empire in a future form.
Here it is enough to note that the ten horns clearly take us on to the future. Then the Roman Empire will be revived in a ten-kingdom form under one head (see Rev. 13:1; Rev. 17:12).
- Unnamed — no creature in nature fits the fourth beast. Daniel sees a monster instead of an animal, and it fills him with dread.
- Unmasked — the statue of Daniel 2 shows how the world admires empire. The beasts of Daniel 7 show how God sees it. His saints are to value it as He does.
- Unsparing — iron teeth take the best of earlier empires, and the feet trample the rest.
- Unlike — one government held the will of the people and an iron despotism together at once.
- Unfinished — Rome never had ten kings at once. So a gap of centuries stands inside verse 7, waiting for a revived empire of ten kingdoms under one head.
I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another, a little horn, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots; and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.
Daniel watches the ten horns of the fourth beast. As he looks, an eleventh horn pushes up and tears out three of them — and this one has human eyes and a voice.
The word "little" is not decoration. It marks the starting point of a career, not its finish.
Here we have divine ground to know that the "little horn" of the west will at first be a small power among the other ten, and that he only becomes great by destroying three of his contemporary powers. He becomes at last not only the possessor of these three kingdoms but the overlord of all the rest. This is the form in which he becomes emperor of the western powers.
Uprooting three kingdoms is how he opens; the other seven follow by a different route.
This eleventh horn is Satan's agent for bringing together the broken-up parts of the ancient Empire of Rome. He will begin by conquering three of the European kingdoms. Then cunning or force will draw seven others to join with these in a general confederacy. Each kingdom will keep its own ruler, but all will acknowledge the supreme leadership of the little horn.
Horns picture force. The eyes point to something else.
The little horn is marked by immense intelligence — not by brute force. The description of it contrasts with that of the Lord, the Lamb who was slain. He has seven horns and seven eyes — that is, the perfection of intelligence and of power. In this case it is not so. The power outwardly looks much greater. It has ten horns instead of seven — a monster instead of perfection. The result is a kind of grotesque exaggeration of the power and wisdom of Christ, which wretched man, energised by Satan, will claim for himself.
This horn is more than a violent conqueror. His words have consequences.
This description is not simply that of a power driven into action by its passions, nor of a conqueror who goes about ravaging everywhere. There was something more in the ways of this little horn: extreme arrogance, intelligence, design, planning, reflection. He had eyes like the eyes of a man… He also had "a mouth speaking great things," that is, enormous boasting. This particularly marks this horn. It is because of the words this horn spoke that the beast was destroyed. He is the one who brings on the judgment of the fourth beast. The little horn is the one who morally influences the beast.
Some read the horns as systems or governments rather than real people. The verse points the other way.
But the great words of the horn bring judgment down upon the beast, and this assures us all the more of the horn's personality. A "political system" is not a responsible agent; for that you need a living being. We could not think of ten political systems where an eleventh subdued three of them, as is said of the "horn." If a real king is meant, nothing is more natural. A king is the meaning of both "horn" and "head," and that should be simple enough to need no further explanation.
Many readers have applied this horn to the pope. One commentator grants the likeness, then applies a simple test.
The pope has never gained three of the ten kingdoms… All its weight has come instead from its spiritual deception over the souls of men. Clearly, then, a power, small in its beginnings, is to rise and put down three of these greater powers, taking over all their dominion. The pope has never done any such thing. So although there has been a measure of likeness, there is enough difference to make the distinction quite plain.
He does not dismiss that older reading completely:
I gather from that, not that this has no bearing upon the papacy, but that its full fulfilment is in the future.
- Small — he begins as the least of eleven horns; smallness at the start says nothing about where a man will end.
- Seizing — he tears three kingdoms up by the roots, and the other seven then fall in behind him.
- Seeing — the human eyes mark intelligence, not brute force. It is a twisted copy of the wisdom and power that belong to the Lamb.
- Speaking — his boasting is what defines him, and what draws down judgment on the whole beast he leads.
- Someone — a system cannot answer for anything; the horn is a real king. And no past figure fits, since no pope ever subdued three kingdoms.
I beheld till thrones were set, and the Ancient of days did sit his raiment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was flames of fire, [and] its wheels burning fire.
Daniel's night vision shifts without warning. The beasts rising out of a churning sea give way to a courtroom, where One takes His seat in snow-white clothing on a throne of fire.
Older English Bibles read "the thrones were cast down," which suggests destruction. Commentators differ on the wording. One says the true reading is "set up," which the ESV's "thrones were placed" carries. Another says both words come to the same thing. Either way, this is not God steering events from behind the scenes. It is a court sitting down.
"I saw until the thrones were set up." That is how it ought to read, instead of "cast down." This is not just my opinion. It is the way the best ancient and modern translations of Scripture all understand it... There you have a clear picture of the divine glory in judgment. It is not just God working through providence on the earth, but the process of judgment that God Himself will set up.
The wording comes from a courtroom custom, and the court has records to open.
"Cast down," or "placed," as in the Revised Version, both really mean the same thing. The reference is to the Eastern custom of throwing down cushions for the judges to sit on... This judgment is set, and the books are opened. The court looks into how the Gentile Empires used the power God granted them. The great Judge of all examines the doings of the little horn in particular.
The court does not assemble at random. It answers something said out loud.
Afterwards the thrones are set, and the Ancient of days sits. It is a session of judgment, the throne of Jehovah's judgment; it is not said where, but its effect is on earth. The words of the little horn are what set the judgment in motion. It falls on the beast, which is destroyed, and its body given to the flames. The other beasts lost their dominion, but their lives went on. The fourth loses its life along with its dominion.
The title points to the eternal God — and the same chapter shows who holds it. This session is also not the last judgment.
That the Ancient of days is the Eternal God is beyond question. It is just as clear, from verse 22 and from Revelation 1, that the Son of man is the Ancient of days, the Eternal God. God has committed all judgment to Him because He is the Son of man. Scripture plainly declares the scene before us to be a session of judgment — not the session of judgment of the Great White Throne in Revelation 20, but a session for the judgment of the living... in preparation for the setting up of His kingdom.
Daniel and John see the same Person. Each shows a different half of the picture.
In the Revelation the two glories are both united in the Person of Christ. Revelation 1 shows us one like the Son of man. But when we come to the description of Him, some of the features are exactly the same as the ones given here to the Ancient of days. His garment is said to be as white as snow, the hair of His head like pure wool, and so on. The Jewish prophet sees Christ simply as man. The Christian prophet sees Him as man, but as God as well.
Fire marks the throne, its wheels, and the stream flowing out. Scripture uses that image with a settled meaning.
The throne was like a fiery flame, its wheels as burning fire, and a fiery stream came out from before Him. Fire is always a symbol in Scripture of the holiness of God applied in judgment.
Daniel counts more than one throne, yet names only one occupant. John's vision fills in the rest.
When Daniel beheld the thrones, not "cast down" but "set up," he speaks of no one sitting but One, the Ancient of days. When John saw thrones, others were sitting on them, and judgment was given to them.
Another writer says who those other thrones are for.
Not one throne, but many; for the glorified saints are to have part in this judgment.
- Provocation — The boasting of the little horn brings the court into session. Defiance of God has a limit.
- Session — The thrones are set up, not cast down. A court sits, the books open, and the Gentile empires answer for how they used their power.
- Person — The Ancient of days is the eternal God. Verse 22 and Revelation 1 show the Son of man with the same snow-white features.
- Fire — The flaming throne is holiness applied in judgment. This court judges the living, not the session of the Great White Throne in Revelation 20.
- Result — The fourth beast alone loses its life along with its dominion, and the way opens for the Son of man's kingdom.
A stream of fire issued and came forth from before him; thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
Daniel's night vision moves from a parade of beast-like empires to a courtroom of fire, with countless attendants and open books. Three questions follow: who is on trial, when does this court sit, and what do the books hold?
Older Bibles read "cast down." That sounds like thrones toppling. One writer says the words mean the opposite.
"I saw until the thrones were set up." That is how it should read, instead of "cast down." This is not just my opinion. The best ancient and modern translations of Scripture all read it this way. There you see a clear picture of the divine glory in judgment. This is not just God's ordinary working in events on the earth. It is the process of judgment that God Himself will set up... At whatever time this may be supposed to take place, it is clear that it is a divine judgment.
Flame runs through every detail — the throne, its wheels, the stream pouring out from before Him. Commentators read that fire as a settled biblical symbol.
That the Ancient of Days is the Eternal God is beyond doubt. It is just as clear, both from verse 22 and from Revelation 1, that the Son of man is the Ancient of Days, the Eternal God. All judgment has been committed to Him because He is the Son of man... The throne was like a fiery flame, and its wheels like burning fire. A fiery stream came out from before Him. Fire is always a symbol in Scripture of the holiness of God as applied in judgment.
Readers often place this court at the very end of time. One writer points instead to what its verdict produces.
The scene described is like the judgment of the wicked after the thousand years in Revelation 20, and many suppose it is the same. But however common this mistake is, what is described here is the carrying out of judgment on earth. It is the transfer of power from the hand of man to that of Christ... What is the result declared here? It is the destruction of the horn and of the beast. It is the transfer of the "kingdom, dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven" into the hands of the Son of man, with all His saints.
Daniel counts two groups: thousands who serve, and myriads who stand. One writer says who they are and what they do.
Surrounding the throne are thousands of angelic beings. Carrying out judgment is one of the functions of the angels. Matthew 25 describes the judgment of the living nations. It opens with the Son of Man coming to His throne of glory, "and all the holy angels with him" (Matthew 25:31).
Daniel sees thrones in the plural, yet he names only one occupant. One writer turns to Revelation for the rest.
Daniel has already spoken of these thrones: "I saw," he says, "until the thrones were placed"... "and the Ancient of Days did sit" (Daniel 7:9). But there was then no word about who occupied the thrones. It is the part of Revelation to fill in the picture on its heavenly side, and to show us who these are. They are not angels. There may be "principalities" among the angels, but Scripture never says they will reign with Christ. They are redeemed men.
God does not need reminding. The books are read as evidence produced in public, against the boastful power Daniel had just been watching.
God will take public and formal notice of the acts and words of this daring enemy. It is for this purpose that the books will be opened (v. 10). Those books will hold perfectly accurate records of this ungodly sinner's deeds. The sentence will be passed as the glory of Him who will sit on His holy throne demands.
- Court. The thrones are set up, not cast down: God opens a formal court session, not a slow drift of history.
- Judge. The One seated is the Ancient of Days, the Eternal God, and the Son of man. The fire around Him is His holiness applied in judgment.
- Attendants. Thousands serve and myriads stand. They are angels, and carrying out judgment is part of their work.
- Records. The opened books hold an exact account of one man's deeds. The sentence answers to the glory of the One on the throne.
- Verdict. Not the end of the world, but the end of the beast. Power passes from the hand of man to Christ and His saints.
I beheld therefore, because of the voice of the great words that the horn spoke; I beheld till the beast was slain, and its body destroyed, and it was given up to be burned with fire.
The Ancient of Days has taken His seat for judgment. Daniel's attention now snaps back to earth, to a small horn still boasting while the court sits. The verse answers two questions: what triggers the sentence, and how far it reaches.
The trigger is not an army or an invasion. It is speech. The horn boasts while God sits in judgment.
The occasion then was "the great words which the horn spoke." Revelation 13 says of the beast: "The beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words… It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming His name and His dwelling and those who dwell in heaven." Because of these blasphemies the Ancient of Days came and sat for judgment on His fiery throne. These daring acts of defiance against God filled his cup of iniquity to overflowing. Judgment came upon him, swift and sure.
The prophet is not just reporting. He is watching something that shocks him: open blasphemy in full view of the throne.
Now the little horn takes up all of Daniel's attention (v. 11)… He is amazed to hear this horn speaking blasphemous things there, in the very presence of God. He wondered that God should permit it; but he saw the beast slain. This was the result.
Notice the switch. The horn does the talking, but the beast dies. God treats the two as one.
The prophet says, "I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed." God judges the beast for the words of the horn. Beast and horn are one as to responsibility before God. Now a "horn" too is a "king" (Rev. 17:12). Here even in Daniel is a king so morally identified with the beast that he draws down the judgment of God upon it.
One writer points out what Daniel does not say.
Daniel says he looked "because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking" — not until the horn was put down, but until "the beast was killed." This implies that the little horn had managed to govern the entire beast.
Fire and a throne can make a reader think of the last courtroom of all. This scene comes earlier.
Here the judgment deals above all with the little horn and the beast he ruled… Blasphemous defiance of God will mark the last head of the revived Roman Empire. That defiance will bring swift and overwhelming judgment on him and on his dominion. Note that the judgment Daniel speaks of is not the final judgment of the Great White Throne, when God will raise the dead and judge them. Daniel speaks of the judgment of the living nations which will precede the reign of Christ.
Empires usually fade slowly and break apart. This one ends in a different way.
What happened to the Roman empire in the past was the ordinary course and decline of a great nation. Barbarian hordes tore it up, and separate kingdoms took its place. But prophecy tells us of something altogether different. It warns of a judgment that disposes of the beast in a completely different way from the others… The first three beasts lost their imperial dignity, but they themselves could still be said to exist. The fourth empire is different. The hour that destroys its dominion is the hour that destroys the empire itself.
Daniel sees a body given to fire. Revelation fills in what happens to the person behind the empire.
Add verse 11 to the sentence passed on his dominion, and we see what the judgment was on his person. Verse 11 itself speaks only of the "body" of the beast… Revelation 19 gives us more information. It belongs to the same judgment. There we read that both the beast and the false prophet were thrown alive into a lake of fire burning with sulphur (v. 20). He is stripped of his dominion. Like Belshazzar, he has been weighed in the balances and found wanting. He suffers with the false prophet the vengeance of eternal fire.
Another writer notes what the word "alive" rules out.
The beast and the false prophet are the personal enemies of Christ. So in the day of battle the Lord meets them in person, and both are thrown alive into the lake. They never die the death common to man, so no resurrection awaits them. Death does not separate their soul and body. They go into the lake alive.
- Words start it. The sentence falls because of what the horn says. Blasphemy spoken in front of the seated Ancient of Days fills the cup.
- Words spread it. The horn boasts, the beast dies: the ruler and his empire are one before God, so his guilt becomes its ruin.
- Words end it. The first three empires lost their rule but kept their lives. The fourth loses rule and life in the same hour.
- Timing. This is the judgment of the living nations before Christ's reign. It is not the Great White Throne, where God raises the dead.
- Destination. Revelation fills in the fire. The beast goes into the lake alive: no death, and so no resurrection.
As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away; but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.
The vision has just shown the fourth beast destroyed, and now the prophet looks back at the three empires before it. Verse 12 says they lost their rule but kept their lives, which raises a question about what God does with defeated powers.
This verse does not describe the next event after the judgment of the fourth beast. It takes a step back in the vision.
We must not think that this followed directly on what comes before. Daniel had already seen all four beasts. Now, after the judgment of the last one, the vision goes back to tell us what had been done with the first three. That was not done at this session of judgment. It happened earlier, in God's judicial dealings in His providential government.
Losing an empire is not the same as disappearing. The verse separates power from survival.
We still have the remains of the Chaldeans, or of the races once called by that name. Persia continues as a kingdom, and the Greeks have lately become one. They exist, then, though not as imperial powers. We have these races of men, more or less, representing those powers — smaller, it is true, and no longer holding dominion as empires. This is the meaning of verse 12.
Another writer names what became of each of the three.
When Babylon lost its imperial place in the earth, it did not cease to exist. It remained a flourishing city for centuries afterwards. Peter wrote his first letter there (1 Peter 5:13). Persia and Greece remain before our eyes to this day, though stripped of their ancient power and glory.
No public act of judgment struck down the first three empires. The ordinary movement of history displaced them, and God was behind that movement.
God had been hidden, so to speak, during the time of the other beasts. Yet His providence was at work. The Persians replaced the Babylonians, and the Greeks replaced the Persians. All of this happened the way things still happen now: by the arrangement of that providence which governs the world. It happened this way because the Ancient of Days was not yet sitting to execute judgment for the acts committed against Him, though His rights can never be cancelled.
For the first three, dominion went long before life did. For the last, both go at once.
After Babylon lost its dominion, it continued to exist for some time, and so did Persia. But the destruction of the fourth beast will be complete. The others lived on after their empire fell. Here the judgment and the destruction go together.
That difference marks out one empire as unique in the whole series.
The Babylonian lost its imperial power; so did the Medo-Persian, as well as the Macedonian or Grecian, never to rise again. Yet they were all to exist, and so they do still; but their dominion was to be taken away, as it is laid down in Dan. 7:12. There was to be no revival of their imperial character, though a prolonging in life was given them when their dominion was lost.
One writer answers a fair question: why should anyone care now about empires that fell so long ago?
These empires, in the day of their power, had to do with God's people, and whatever concerns His people touches His glory. That gives them deep and lasting importance. Their lives were also prolonged. So to the end of the times of the Gentiles, there will still exist nations that represent these once powerful empires. At the time of the end, these nations will stand against the people of God — the Jews.
- Backward glance. The verse steps back from the fourth beast's judgment. It tells what God had already done with the first three.
- Providence. Babylon fell to Persia, and Persia to Greece. The God who governs the world arranged it, without a court sitting in judgment.
- Prolonged. They lost dominion, not life. These peoples lost world rule but kept a smaller existence as nations.
- Different end. The fourth beast loses dominion and life in the same hour. It revives before that judgment, but after it, it is gone for ever.
- Still on stage. The old empires survive, so their nations return at the time of the end and stand against God's people. That is why their history matters.